Atop the Penrose Stairs
by Hazel Sparks
Summary: Post-Inception: Ariadne continues to practice building dreamworlds via the Pasiv device, but things go horribly, inexplicably wrong. Caught in a dangerous game with a projection that's more monster than man, Ariadne is at risk of losing her job – and her mind. She and Arthur must solve this or face catastrophic consequences that could alter the world forever. Art/Ari pairing.
1. Inceptus

**Hello all! Hazel Sparks again here, with another story... This one's going to be a bit different than my older (Avengers) one (but see if you can find how they're related!) and I hope it will be even better, too!**

 ** _ATPS_ will be posted in seven installments on about a biweekly basis. I do not own Inception. Only the OCs are mine, though for reasons partially explained in the closing A/N even that isn't wholly true, and therefore I stake no legal claims. I cannot stop you from using them, but please credit and notify me if you do. Some of the places depicted in this story are real locations, but are used in a fictitious manner. All characters are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any resemblance to the fictional characters of the canon material, or to others who may have seeped into my nightmares, is not. **

**I am still doing the thing where if you are an author and review my story - positive or negative, it only needs to be honest - I will go review yours as well. I want to be very clear that while you're welcome to leave as many reviews as you want, I am capping my returns at 1-2 per person because there are a lot of you and only one of me... **

**Well, I think that's about all I have to cover right now. Sit down, settle in, and grab your totems - here we go!**

* * *

~ For Fell. Wasn't about to waste all those nights you wouldn't let me sleep. ~

* * *

"Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you." – John Irving

* * *

Los Angeles would have been a thing to behold.

The skyscrapers, smog layer, taxi jams, urban bands, the masses and the movie stars, all compacted into one hive of millions. It was busy even now, as the sun retired for the night. The last orange rays were divided in razor fragments along the sides of the glassed high-rises. The city shone like crystal, the light blurry at the horizon in the distance. From the heat, probably. Heat and jetlag.

Ariadne stood with her nose to the glass wall, rocking on her toes twenty stories from the ground. It had been a full two days since they'd arrived in the U.S., their work complete. Cobb had vanished from the airport – unbarred, to the team's relief. Saito, shaken as he was, had paid them quickly and with short thanks, and returned to his home country the next day. Arthur was nearby, taking care of their supplies and the responsibility Cobb had abandoned at the sight of his family. Eames and Yusuf, having become quite good friends, had elected to take a holiday on some obscure island off the Golden Coast, where they would presumably spend a good portion of their earnings.

Not all of it, no – it would take anyone longer than a holiday to spend what Saito had granted them for their work. Ariadne was still in partial shock. Her stipend, tucked in a briefcase in the hotel room safe, was more money than she'd ever had at once. It would finance the rest of her architecture degree. No loans, no debt. She could live _here_ , even.

Elating, but, strangely, she couldn't see it. Even a mind that thought in unparalleled pictures could not see it. When she thought of her future – which, unabashedly, she'd done almost nonstop since they'd gotten off the plane – earning the degree just wasn't in it. There was just this void. Every time she tried, there was only the half-dazed memory of the inception job on her mind.

They had gone into a boundless world. They had done the impossible. They had come back.

It had taken her a few times of cycling through it all to realize that she didn't really want the degree anymore. It was an especially crushing revelation to have while standing on the cusp of one of the greatest centers of architecture in the world. Below lay a maze Ariadne had no doubt she could dominate. Los Angeles' spread encompassed the work of masters, all fitted seamlessly together in a clockwork mechanism of a city.

So it would have been impressive. But, even in its shining glory held against but the fuzzy ghost of the dreamworld, it was just another maze.

 _There_ , on the other hand, _architect_ held a whole new meaning. _There_ they were gods.

It had taken only a moment to decide, but these two whole days to realize fully: she had to do it again.

Somehow, she had to do it again. If her architecture school was her favorite place on earth, the dreamworld was Paradise itself.

Ariadne expected to be offered a role in the next job, whenever that would be. But before then, even, she wanted to practice. Her mazes, as they'd learned, were not yet unbeatable, and she shuddered to think of what would happen if they ever came across someone more resourceful than Mal.

It was dark now, and, ironically, she didn't see herself getting to sleep anytime soon.

 _Arthur_ , she decided. She would go see Arthur. He was staying only two floors up, and, as last she'd heard, was in possession of the Pasiv device. Ariadne stepped backwards from the window, the dizzying height almost starlit now. She strolled into the tiny kitchen. It was equipped with a minifridge and several specialized appliances atop a marble counter, much nicer than her now-vacant dorm. At least she could stay in the dorm for weeks with the nightly cost of this place.

She grabbed her room key from the countertop and walked to the stairs. The hotel wasn't busy tonight; only the plastic plants in the hallway greeted her.

Upstairs it was nearly the same. The carpet was a lighter shade of green, and the fake plants represented aloe rather than orchids. Ariadne walked down the narrow hall, and soon arrived at Arthur's door. A small mountain of room service plates lay just outside the frame. He'd only been out once, when they'd eaten breakfast at the buffet by the lobby. She'd gone out shopping yesterday afternoon, but had since been advised to lay low for a while. To see if the effects of the job played out. To make sure they got away with it.

Arthur opened the door before she even knocked. Despite being holed up in his room for two days, he looked relatively put together. His hair was combed, a stack of paperwork was under his arm, and he'd changed out of his pajamas into actual clothes. It was more than she could say.

"Hey," he said quietly. She bit her lip.

She'd been working with the man for weeks now, and still she was reminded every time she saw him that there wasn't anyone quite like Arthur. He played with con-men and felons, but she couldn't bring herself to call him a criminal. Outwardly he was a gentleman, but he could pull off that mask with a quirk of his mouth. A natural teacher, she found him helpful where the others saw him as bossy. And of course, the only things more flawless than his appearance were his job schemes.

When Ariadne finally responded, she forgot to return the greeting.

"I'd like to do it again. To – to use the Pasiv."

Arthur smiled. _The real world wasn't enough anymore, after all._ He lowered his voice, "There'll be more jobs, you know. Don't worry."

"I know. But I want to practice. I mean, if we get another job, and if – if there's another Mal . . . I need to be better. I froze. Twice. She figured out the vents, and that made things horrible. It's only a few minutes here, right?"

It _would_ be nice to get out for a little while, even if it wasn't real, he thought.

"Alright," Arthur said, holding the door open for her, "Just don't build us another goddamned hotel. I'm getting cabin fever." She smiled.

Arthur bolted the door behind them; he didn't like the idea of going under alone. Here. Now.

But, god, he had to go somewhere, and like Ariadne, the dreamworld held a certain appeal for him. The work was good and the skills he'd developed for it were exceptional, but the creativity was unmatched. And to see Ariadne explore it was always fascinating.

She watched as he pulled a silver briefcase from under the bed. It was simple and sleek, and embellished on one side with _PASIV MV-235A_ in tiny lettering. They went through the well-versed routine of setting it up: Arthur opened the case, unfurled the tubes and adjusted the timed sedative reserve. Ariadne turned on a bedside lamp in the dying evening sun, and sat. She took a slender tube from the coil beside the briefcase on the mattress.

"How long do you want to go?" Ariadne asked.

"Maybe ten minutes or so," Arthur mumbled, tweaking the sedative. "The hotel's not, uh, secure, and we haven't gotten word on the Fischer job yet. I don't want to be gone long." He reclined on the opposite side of the bed, and glanced up once more to check the door was locked. It was.

"Shared build?" He inquired. Most dreams had a lead architect, as they were centered around the subject of the heist, and the others had jobs to do. With only a couple people involved, however, the design of the dream could be made malleable to both parties.

"Mm-hmm."

Ariadne felt a slight prick as she slipped the needles into her arm, and leaned back against the headboard. They must have looked like a strange pair; she'd often wondered what someone normal would think of them if they were to walk in and find them this way. The handsome, sophisticated-looking fellow to one side and the innocent businesswoman to the other, both out cold with IV's in their veins. _The most clean-cut druggies to ever live, probably._ Her quickly-muddling thoughts turned to what lay ahead.

Arthur mumbled something, eyes already closed, but she didn't catch it. They were gone.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

It wasn't raining.

It wasn't sunny, though, either. The sky was lit a pale blue all around, the light from some indiscernible single source, like a film on an omni screen. Clearly daytime, though. The dome was dusted with wispy clouds, none of which were in any particular hurry. The air was calm and sweet, and, as in every of Ariadne's dreams, held the same scent of that in her childhood hometown. A lingering blessing of the subconscious mind.

The grass was soft and short under her feet – they were bare – but crisp and drying all around. The field rustled softly as one. At the edges lay a band of pomegranate trees. Streams of water could be heard beyond them.

Arthur stood by her side. He'd traded his business suit for a more casual shirt-and-khakis outfit. Behind them, leading to the field and their little circle, was a dirt road, but he knew they had not come by it. There was never any getting here in this world. Only _being_ here.

Arthur breathed in the air – real-ish, outside air – deeply.

"So," he said, "what do you want to learn?"

But Ariadne was already off walking, a pair of sandals materializing on her feet, her brown hair swaying behind her. She was heading for the line of trees. Arthur followed.

"Did you build this place?" he asked. It was common, of course, for the architect to prepare the dreamscape as they entered, but on occasion the main elements were left entirely to chance – or entirely to the subconscious, that is – for changing later. This field was lovely, but it was whimsical. A child's dream. Not a practical thing for training against the more unsatisfactory products of the subconscious mind. Monsters crawled out from dark corners, not wildflowers.

"No. It is nice though. I think my grandmother lived near a field a little like this, is probably it. I'm creating what's ahead." Her strides became more determined.

It took them many minutes to reach the dense, interwoven line of saplings and brush. Only mere seconds in real time. They slipped beneath it, stepping almost directly into Ariadne's waiting handiwork: A living labyrinth.

Ahead, the brush arced into an entryway twenty feet high, the vines and topiaries still slithering into place as the pair approached. Deep green walls nearly equal in height extended to each side as far as they could see. Arthur watched as a towering adamantine gate creaked open before them. Within the entryway to the maze, the path diverged immediately in not two, but three different directions.

Arthur laughed. "You do know we're only staying two hours, right?"

Ariadne smirked. "I've been designing this one for a while – thought it'd be a good way to try some things out. It's more of a classical labyrinth – but it's not a hotel, is it?" She held out one arm to the maze, palm open. "Your lead."

He walked slowly in, choosing the leftmost of the three paths. Ariadne followed close behind. She stayed quiet, her focus directed on carefully manipulating the dreamscape. She saw him hesitate every few turns, memorizing their route thus far.

Of all the members of their little band of unconventional criminals, Arthur was the cleverest. He was the strategist, the one whose responsibility it was to solve the problems unforeseen. Who figured out how to drop people without gravity, and how to slip undetected into throngs of foreign projections . . .

That was why Ariadne loved for him to test her mazes. If it was challenging to him, to the average projectional deterrent of their theft it would prove impossible.

Around another bend in the bramble-walled path the trees overhead disappeared, and a new burning sun beat down on their shoulders. Arthur shrugged off his jacket. They walked on.

Every second turn, the maze forked in three. They only had to double back once before Arthur settled into the pattern. He looked unimpressed, considering it had been so easy to sort out. So unlike Ariadne . . .

Once, the path opened into a small stone plaza, a perfect square with an exitway on three sides. Arthur paused, examining. To the fourth side, the vines were woven over a lattice, forming a sanctuary from the burning sun. A basin of clear liquid sat beneath it. It was designed to look like cool, refreshing water to the exhausted maze-goer, but in reality it was something much worse.

Ariadne bit her lip. Against hope that her new maze prevailed, she found herself hoping that Arthur would catch her trap before it caught him. Though of course dying in this dream would be inconsequential, the poison would still cause pain.

She was about to call out a warning when Arthur paused at the edge of the shade on his own. He turned around, curious, and plucked a twig from the nearby wall. He dropped it into the basin, and it dissolved almost instantly.

"Booby traps?" he somehow looked pleased, yet frowned. He hadn't seen her rig a maze like this yet. Impressive.

"I was gonna tell you before you tried to drink it. I just wanted to see how close–"

"No, it's good. But focus on confusing the victim. Their bodily needs may vary depending on their condition in real life, and projections might not have any at all. But illusions are universal." Ariadne took note of the advice, but her mind paused a moment on the word _victim_ – it made the whole criminal thing seem very real, more so that the oft-used _subject_.

"Now, how about a hint or two?" Arthur gave a small smile. Clearly the pattern here was not as he'd thought, and they probably had only an hour or so until the music started.

Closing her eyes in concentration, Ariadne tugged at the vine walls. The plants slithered forth and closed _all three_ of the paths to the plaza. Arthur's eyebrows went up. He paced around the center of the square, looking up and over the walls. Eventually, as if in realization, his gaze dropped to his feet. Ariadne suppressed a smile. Hidden in the varying shades of stone was a mosaic, a profile image of a siren singing.

Suddenly, it clicked. Arthur grabbed the basin of liquid from beneath the shade and, with care, took it over to the mosaic. He poured it over the siren's mouth, pulling his shoes out of the way just in time. The stones began to hiss and smoke. Then, without warning, they fell away, cascading into a dark pit.

Revealed was a spiral staircase below.

Ariadne nodded, and together they descended into the dark. They followed a narrow passageway beneath the initial maze. Arthur checked that his pistol was secured to his hip.

"So?" she asked

"The false patterns are good. Could be applied to an urban setting. Booby traps are a nice idea – but we'd have to warn the team first," Arthur replied as they walked. "My turn, now."

An almost-spiral staircase materialized in the gloom ahead. The twisted, iron silhouette could just barely be seen by the shaft of light poured over it. It reached like a radio tower spire up into the blinding white.

Arthur led them into a climb. They climbed. And climbed. And climbed. There was _no way_ it had taken this long to descend, Ariadne thought.

"Arthur," she gasped, "We can't stay all day."

He smirked. "You're right. We should hurry." And he broke into a run.

"Arthur, this isn't funny!" She gripped the rail, trying to keep up. It was as if they were ascending a castle turret; the place was dotted with blackened windows and portways every few strides. Arthur disappeared from sight, his long legs carrying him upward much faster. Blindly, she kept climbing. Suddenly she felt–

She felt hands close around her collar from behind. _Oh god._ Every muscle in her body tensed with panic. _Panic panic panic panic._ She could feel the labyrinth overhead trembling, blurring . . . _Who . . ?_

"The labyrinth's greatest weakness should not be its architect," Arthur whispered in her ear. His hands slid down to her biceps. "Don't freeze."

"Arthur! You –" she turned and glanced over her shoulder at him. The trembling stopped and the dream stabilized.

"What? You said you wanted to practice," he released her and feigned innocence.

"Never mind that you scared me – how did you do that?"

"These are what you would call a type of Penrose steps. I merely went a few paces ahead of you."

 _Ah. Arthur's famous paradoxical staircases_. She started walking again, tentatively. "So we could climb these forever?"

He nodded. "Infinitely, until your brain figures it out completely. But that's more complicated. It's a paradox. Maybe sometime I'll teach them to you."

Well, that was promising. His knowledge of paradoxes he held particularly close to his chest. She'd already glimpsed it twice, now, and few others ever saw it at all.

A pathway materialized to one of the adjacent portways in the wall, and from there a ramp led them out from the underground. Ariadne tried to make small talk as they went.

"So, where are you going after we get cleared?"

Arthur thought for a moment. "Staying in the States – but probably with Dom, eventually. He seems to think there's a potential client to be had in Italy or Spain or something, but I don't know the details. We might have to handle future jobs without him, though, considering. You?"

"I don't know yet. I'd like to keep doing . . . this, but I know Dom had some issues with it in the States."

"Yeah," he replied quietly, "Highly illegal, even without his unique tragedy. The military came up with it initially, you know, but all their work today is classified. If we keep doing this kind of thing, we can't get caught. It ruined Cobb's life. Eames and them remember that, but you need to know the stakes if this is what you want to do."

"Okay. I know. I just . . . don't think I could live without this anymore, knowing it exists. Knowing what I can do," she said. They were almost to the end of the passage now, to daylight.

"I understand." He gave a small smile. "Cobb pulled me in early, and for a while it was just us. I used to be that kid that wouldn't even break curfew, you know? Never thought I would end up in this kind of work. I tried to walk away twice, but I . . . just couldn't. Nothing like it." Ariadne shook her head in agreement.

The pair emerged into a quaint town square. Market stalls were set up beneath tile-roofed buildings, and a few projections bustled about. Most paid the new arrivals no mind, but a few stopped what they were doing to stare in a way that made Ariadne shiver. But Arthur was behind her in an instant, whisking them around the corner onto a quieter street. She sighed inside. Secretly, she was hoping he'd kiss her again, seeing as it had worked so well last time.

"I used to work at a place like that, once," she pointed to a small coffee shop across the way. It was a cramped little place with a light green awning out front, and wonderful smells drifting from the open doorway.

"Oh yes?" They made their way across the street.

"Yeah, but it was a _little_ different . . ." Ariadne squinted and concentrated on the building, and, all at once, it started to change. The awning turned scarlet, and round windows appeared beneath it. The style of the tables within changed as the pair approached.

"Ariadne, be careful," Arthur warned.

"Relax. I think we've had enough today to let us know we're dreaming," she twirled her totem between her fingers.

"Ariadne . . ." _Never create real places._

They had reached the sidewalk now, and everyone in the coffee shop paused to stare at them again. At Arthur especially. A mother stopped chiding her toddler, tugging at her blond curls, to follow them with her eyes. The barista was a statue when they arrived at the counter. Arthur calmly ordered them drinks, and that seemed to put the projections off of the matter.

They sat at a table – a small, glass one at the window – and no projections seemed to be the wiser. It was only when Arthur's totem, the red loaded die, clattered onto the tabletop, that Ariadne noticed.

She noticed him. Staring.

At the next table down – behind Arthur – sat a lone figure in all black. There was not much extraordinary about him, at first, except that he stared. He was of average height and build, and indiscernible age. A few wrinkles (they might have been frown lines or laugh lines or time, she couldn't tell) accented his cheekbones. Shocks of graying-black hair were visible beneath his trilby. But his deep brown – no, _ruby –_ eyes seemed to bore directly into her soul.

She felt naked. She froze. Something wasn't right.

Arthur was talking to her again, but she couldn't hear it.

The man's eyes drifted to the die on the table for an instant, then, very slowly, made their way up to Ariadne's face once more.

And she swore he understood.

And he grinned.

And he must not have been a _he_ after all, truly, because that hideous smile revealed a set of perfectly pointed teeth. No, this was a _monster_.

"Arthur," she gasped. She must have looked as horrified as she felt, because he turned to follow her gaze without her having to say any more.

And then the dream collapsed.

It was violent, more so than normal. There was a jolt that ripped through everything – every glass, every tablecloth, every chair, every projection – and reduced things to atoms at random. Ariadne's nerves seared with pain. The world began to come apart. The floor fell _up_ just as much as the ceiling fell _down_. Arthur and Ariadne and the coffee shop and the stranger smiling across from them were crushed as this temporary universe folded, shuddering, into itself.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Arthur's eyes snapped open, back in the hotel. His head was pounding – actual, physical pain, not a remnant of the dreamworld – and it took a few moments for the fog to clear from his vision. He rolled over to check the Pasiv.

Eight minutes. According to the Pasiv, they'd only been gone eight minutes. Whatever _that_ had been had been something strong enough _(strong? traumatic enough? scary enough?)_ to rapture them out of the depths of a mature dreamworld. No easy feat.

 _What the hell was that?_

Ariadne stirred. Moaned first, then stirred.

 _Joke all you want about a girl moaning in bed,_ he thought cynically, _but_ _that one wasn't a pretty sound_. That was pain. Distress.

After hurriedly replacing his own tube in the Pasiv case, he reached out and removed hers with delicate fingers. Once the Somnacin was out of her vein (and now dribbling into a smelly puddle on the sheets as he went to manually override the flow) sleep paralysis lost its effect. Fully. Her eyes fluttered and her breathing became irregular. Moans became gasps. _In a bad way._

"Ariadne. Ariadne it's alright," he said. She turned her head to look at him. Wide eyes. "It's alright. We're back."

The risings and fallings of her chest became gentler, more regular. Her first sentence matched his first thought.

"What _was_ that?"

"I . . . I don't know. Like a kick – a bad kick – but I didn't do it. Did you?"

"No, no."

Arthur shook his head. He looked around. No one in the room. Nothing seemed displaced in the real world. Nothing to have caused it from here.

"What about that . . . thing? The man – projection – in the coffee shop. Was he mine or yours?"

"I don't know. I've never met anyone like that. Don't know where he would've come from," he said. _But the subconscious can do strange and terrible things._

"Me neither."

Arthur was turned around now, pulling his loaded die from his pocket and rolling it on the nightstand. Twice. Three times. Six times until he was satisfied. Ariadne took out her own totem and flipped it in her hand. Normal. They were definitely back.

"Has this, uh, ever happened to you before?" she ventured.

"Not without a kick," Arthur said after a moment. "I don't think we're in any danger. Probably just a stray fear dressed up as a projection. Are you feeling dizzy? Nauseous?"

"No." _Maybe a little._

"Good. Me neither. Probably no physiological damage, then."

An awkward silence followed. Arthur busied himself by re-organizing the contents of the Pasiv case and snapping it shut.

"Don't ever create real places, Ariadne."

"I'm sorry–"

"No, I don't think that's what caused this. Just, in general."

"Okay. I guess I'll, um, I'll head back to my room, then," Ariadne said. She mumbled an apology as she walked to the door. Arthur assured her it was alright. Nice to have some excitement, even, half-joking.

"Goodnight," he said when she reached the door.

"Goodnight."

Back in her room, Ariadne was at the window staring at the city, exactly as she had been less than twenty minutes ago. _An eternity ago_. She could not convince herself to eat dinner.

What _was_ that? She thought of the whole evening over. The window. The money in the hotel safe. Arthur. The dreamworld. The labyrinth. The Penrose stairs. Arthur. _It_.

It wouldn't have been so bad, really, if this had been some child's night terror in the dark woods. But it wasn't. What was terrifying was that everything had been so _normal_ , coffee and sunshine, and then freaking Venom or someone just decided to pop in on his lunch break.

It wasn't – shouldn't have been – a big deal; it was just a guy. One guy.

A guy that tore the whole world apart.

She _knew_ that man in the coffee shop had something – everything – to do with the collapse. It was silly, of course; he was only a projection. There was no one else in the hotel room.

Projections didn't do that, though. Projections set in motion events – _the knives the air ducts the shooting the limbo_ – that did that; not alone, though. Not with a mere twist of the mouth. Recognition did not dawn on projections' faces like that. The only guess Ariadne had was that she had panicked, and caused the dream to become unstable.

Finally, she decided the answer did not lie in the maze before her, and went to bed on the plush little bunk in the room across from the kitchen.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

She was back in the coffee shop. She hadn't built it this time, but she was back in the coffee shop. Shock alone alerted her that she was dreaming.

This wasn't like a Pasiv-induced dream, though. This place was fuzzy, frayed around the edges. Everything seemed to be moving just a bit too slowly, and her field of vision wasn't quite what it should have been. She felt removed. At the edges of her consciousness she could sense her body, her real body, still in bed. She thought about trying to wake herself, but no – she was too curious.

Ariadne was behind the counter, this time. That made her relax a little, because it indicated this was probably only a normal memory-dream of when she'd worked here. Not uncommon. The dream characters went about their robotic lives, sitting and standing and pacing and wandering out into the lonely street. None stared. Ariadne robotically handed the customers their lattes.

With a great amount of effort and focus she gained a bit of control over her dream-limbs, just enough to command them to fetch a scone from the shelf. It was difficult without assistance from the Pasiv drugs; this doubt that she might be _(was yes definitely was)_ awake kept trying to shove its way in. She nibbled at the scone, looking absently out at the street through frosted windows. She was in the middle of getting herself a free cappuccino – no managers to nab her here – when she saw him.

Him. It.

Sitting at the table in the corner. Staring.

He said something.

He stood, but never got any closer to her. He didn't have to – everything else had gone dead silent – but she still couldn't understand him. His . . . speech was a layered jumble of grunts and whispers and hisses and sneers, like Parseltongue shouted much too loud for a snake. Like the echoes of ghosts in an old, bad haunted-house movie. The sounds that projected did not match the words that his thin lips were forming.

His brow furrowed, and Ariadne got the feeling he'd asked her a question – a pointed, important question.

She shook her head, violently, and tried to back into the wall. He snarled. Ariadne's skin crawled and prickled with goosebumps, her feet were frozen in place _(typical),_ and she couldn't look away.

Suddenly, a sharp pain flared on her left hand. She yelped and dropped the coffee mug she'd been filling, realizing it had overflowed. It shattered into a dozen little ceramic shards, islands in a tiny ocean of piping liquid on the floor.

And it smelled . . . awful.

It smelled like gasoline.

It smelled like gasoline flowing out of the open spigot, too, and Ariadne pushed and pushed at the thing's lever but couldn't close it. All at once _every_ spigot opened, each gushing putrid rivers of the same yellow-green, oily liquid onto the tile. The streams shot out from all machines on the counter behind her, and those to the side. The puddle on the tile was growing fast, sloshing over her toes, spreading across the floor.

Ariadne vaulted over the front counter, stumbling as she landed. The man was still standing there, staring. _Had he done this?_ It seemed like whatever he'd tried to talk to her about before, he was done talking. She stared back. He didn't smile – _gnash his terrible teeth_ – this time, but he did smirk. One rough hand made its way inside the pocket of his trenchcoat, and it came out with a tiny flame. Still smirking.

 _(see I've come to burn your kingdom down)_ she thought absurdly.

And that smug bastard dropped his lighter. Flames spread from the ground around his feet, out in a wave of extraordinary color across the building. First blue, then brilliant orange. Ariadne screamed the cliché silent scream of nightmares and clambered onto a table. Her heels almost caught on the edge, and for a terrifying moment she teetered over the hungry fire. Her stockings melted painfully into the flesh of her calves.

The flames licked the underside of the tabletop, and smoke was rising, clouding the room. The other projections started to run. Most ran out into the street, and, strangely, slammed the cafe doors behind them. Bolted them, even, locking her in.

Ariadne's chest was tingling with the ice-cold bubbly feeling of fight-or-flight panic. Her fingertips were numb. Through the fog, the man/monster had stopped smirking. He stood as a statue, expressionless at the edge of the room as chaos unfolded around him.

The fire alarm went off. It was blaring, only feet behind Ariadne's head. She clamped her hands over her ears and doubled over.

The fire alarm was ringing, ringing, ringing.

 _The alarm was –_

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

– _ringing, ringing, ringing._

Somewhere, Ariadne unconsciously regained just enough motor control to reach out and close her hand over the telephone. She retracted her arm, pulling the receiver to her pillow without opening her eyes.

The noise blessedly ceased. She curled her other hand around the blankets, pulling them to her chin. Not quite awake yet, not dreaming, but not wanting to wake yet, either.

"Ariadne?" a voice said softly. It was Arthur's voice. Arthur's voice, calm and so _sweet_ and . . . _right_ in her ear.

 _Arthur?_

She opened her eyes all at once.

 _Oh God – what had she done? Shit shit shit shit shit._

She flailed and rolled over, dropping the telephone. A moment of confusion when her arm landed only on empty sheets. His voice was still there, though muffled, somewhere.

She realized, suddenly, and, feeling silly, scooped the phone off the floor. Her fingertips were still numb.

"What?"

"I said, 'hello' and 'did I wake you?'"

"Yeah, uh – I mean no, no, I'm fine. It's better."

"Alright . . . Are you okay?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"Turn on the TV. Channel seven." He waited.

Ariadne fished for the remote in the tangle of blankets, and turned on the set. On channel seven – the news – a jumpy cellphone video played, depicting a very animated pack of reporters crowding around none other than their own Mr. Fischer. He walked hurriedly out from an office building and down a street, surrounded. He ducked his head away from the barrage of camera flashes and microphones held eagerly out to him. The mob of press was shouting dozens of questions, none of which Ariadne could make out because the volume on the video was so low.

The Channel Seven news anchor was giving a voiceover of the story, describing the "shocking reports" coming out of the young heir's headquarters this morning. People were furious, she said; he was going to break up the dazzling business empire his father had left to him, just after the man's death, and not to mention take a trip to Dubai next month with his CFO, only to –

 _He was going to break up his father's empire._

"We did it," Ariadne breathed. She could hear Arthur smiling on the other end of the line.

"Yeah," he said. There was a pause as they both watched the conclusion of the story. Arthur for once was quiet, rather letting things just explain themselves.

"I've gotta call Saito. And Dom," he said when the show went to commercial. "Don't go anywhere just yet."

She said, "Okay." The line went dead.

* * *

 **One down, six to go. Let me know what you think so far - leave a review below! - Hazel**


	2. Conatus

**Hello! Part#2 is here, and FYI for the in-progress readers I'm gonna try to switch to posting every other Thursday from now on.**

 **I do not own Inception, or any Italian restaurants, or any hotels. :(**

 **Don't forget - you get a return review if you're an author and you review my story!**

* * *

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." – Stephen King

* * *

Dominick Cobb met them in the lobby not two hours after the morning news.

Though to Arthur he looked as if he'd gotten five years younger over the last few days, his expression remained serious. The hard part was over, and he was home at last – but there were still arrangements to be made. Thus Cobb sidled, shadowed by an unbefitting baseball cap disguise, into their corner of the expansive lower floor of the hotel. He sank into a chair at the table where his two colleagues were already seated.

Arthur shook his hand and offered a smile and a "how's it going," searching his friend's face all the while. Cobb's eyes were a piercing blue, now uncreased by the worry that had once filled them. His jaw was dusted with a few days' worth of stubble, and he smiled wanly.

"I don't know if I'll ever believe it."

Arthur wasn't sure whether to laugh or not. "No?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. Really. They're here, so I'm staying here. Wherever here is."

Arthur nodded in appreciation. "How are they?" he asked.

"Tall," Cobb replied quietly. "Tall."

There were a few beats of silence before the conversation picked up again.

"Here, I want to give you this," Cobb said, sliding an envelope across to Ariadne. "Philippa and James wanted to thank you for your first job."

Ariadne accepted it and thanked him. Inside was a card, folded of ordinary white paper and titled "Thank You" on the outside, with most shaky letters facing the right way. Inside stood crayon stick figures beneath a floating cerulean sky, the two smaller ones holding hands with their father. Ariadne quelled tears.

Arthur said he'd called Saito, who'd interrupted an appointment with his therapist to take it, and that their client had been pleased. Dom promised to get the news to Eames and Yusuf, as he seemed to be the only one able to locate them.

"I guess I was wrong about the inception job," Arthur admitted with a smile. As he'd confided in Ariadne earlier, he had initially tried to steer Dom away from the thing, but now afterwards Dom was a free man and they were all rolling in less-than-legally-obtained cash.

"Damn right you were," Cobb said. They chuckled like longtime friends do, and then Cobb rose to leave.

"I'll be retiring for a while with the family, if you two think you can handle things on your own."

"Certainly," Arthur said. The Fischer story would be off the news by the end of the week; then they were in the clear. Free to relax, practice, look for more clients . . . After, once what was to be done was done and the truth came out in higher circles, they would be the talk of the corporate elite for the next few months, certainly, and he expected quite a few offers to come rolling in – not that they needed the business.

It was decided that once the mainstream media dropped the story (since the public would then inevitably drop it as well, as the mainstream media was all they seemed to listen to) the team could come out of relative hiding.

Later, Ariadne thought, she could even think about traveling back to Europe. Home. In the meantime, America was here, ready to be explored.

Arthur, an American by birth, had promised to take them out into the city, at least, the next day. Two faces would scarcely be noticed amongst the throngs of millions, so the city would be a good first outing. Ariadne hated hiding like this. It made her feel like the criminal their actions assured her she was. She pushed it away, though, and returned to her hotel room focused on thinking of other things. Still cautious, though, she stowed the Cobbs' card not in the safe – too cramped – but in the flat hollow between two cabinets mounted slightly out of line. A place few but an architect would notice. She then filled the afternoon by searching online for the best local spots to visit with Arthur, and went to bed that night with thoughts of shopping out in the Californian sun.

Thoughts, not dreams.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

It was a castle, this time – or so she guessed. The gray stone wall that rose in front of her stretched as far as she could see in any direction. Then again, her field of view was not exactly what it should have been, so this could very well have been an ordinary castle. She sensed that it was, but not quite. Ariadne's feet rested bare on dying grass, and it seemed as though she were just within the outer wall of the place, in a courtyard. She couldn't remember much of how she got there, but didn't waste time thinking about it. A turret rose to her left. She turned around to study the rest of the structure, and it was impressive.

Behind her glowed the inner buildings of the castle, lit by lanterns and torches and the setting sun, at least three stories high and laden with turrets and stairs and towers visible at impossible angles. It was the kind of thing she would build if she were showing off for someone, she thought from somewhere far away. This all seemed a little impossible, but normal at the same time.

An unseen force drove her to walk inside. Ariadne watched herself walk down a cobblestone path and through an arcing doorway ahead. Hymns sung in a language she didn't recognize echoed from the stone walls around her. Beautiful, hollow notes. She turned a corner and the hallway opened into a banquet room, with one, long table set for fifty that ended at a roaring hearth. By the light of the fire Ariadne could see only one seat was occupied.

A silhouette rose from the chair at the head, the end nearest, and faced her.

It was him. It. He wore no druid's hood as she might have thought of someone residing in a castle like this, but rather the same charcoal coat as the last time she'd seen him ( _had she seen him before?_ ). She started to remember, and the glassware on the table began to tremble.

The nameless monster in the trenchcoat raised one palm in her direction, seeming to implore her to be still. _Like she had a choice_. He spoke, then, but his words were again lost in a thousand hisses, staggered like the whispers of ghosts.

"I don't understand!" Ariadne cried. She more listened to herself cry than actually did so.

He/it frowned, revealing only a glimpse of filed teeth in the process. He spoke again, gesturing slightly, but again only the jumbled whispers came, out of sync with the movements of his thin lips.

When Ariadne did not respond, again the man/monster snarled. The flames in the hearth twisted and warped, and for a moment Ariadne feared that the banquet hall might fare no better than their coffee shop. The creature raised an open palm as if to beckon the flames forth, but hesitated.

The glisten in his inhumanly pigmented eyes said scheming was going on behind them. The more rational part of Ariadne tried to remind her that that was impossible, but the more rational part of Ariadne was not the dominant player in this world.

His smirk returned, and with it came a slight wag of his gloved finger. _No . . . I've tried this already_ , it said. The man in the coat instead stalked the length of the table, and grabbed a carving knife from one of the feasting platters. From another he pulled a small creature – a little lamb or a large rabbit; in the dark Ariadne couldn't tell – and dragged it with him on his way back.

Goblets fell to the floor and shattered. A scent of must and decay filled the air, as if the room aged a thousand years with his every step. A trail of spiders skittered from underneath the table and marched in a teeming clump behind the hem of the man's coat.

Ariadne was not keen to get any closer, but nor was it within her abilities to leave. The ornately woven carpet on the floor had stitched itself overtop her feet. She couldn't move. Or look away.

Suddenly, the little animal in the monster's grasp began to scream and bleat in protest. Ariadne realized with a shock it was still alive. And . . .

He raised the carving knife.

"No!–"

More hisses filled the air. They became frustrated, angry. Hornets exploded from the man's sleeve and coated the little creature like it was honey, a living blanket, their buzzing beating wings almost loud enough to drown out the thing's screams.

"No, please! Please don't – No – NO—"

The hornets cleared, and for the briefest of moments she could see the welts left behind. Then he brought the knife down. Now it was Ariadne's turn to scream, though she did so, again, unable to make a sound. She wrenched her feet from the holds of the carpet and fled, propelled by the same unseen, all-knowing force that had beckoned her in. She ran through the hall, across the courtyard, and through a new gate that lay ahead. Splinters clawed at the soles of her feet as she stepped out onto the beginnings of a drawbridge. She looked down.

Far below, the moat ran red.

And worse, behind her, two guard dogs had emerged from the gatehouse and were advancing. They forced her out onto the bridge. They were followed closely by the man in the coat. He wore no grin this time. The bubbling moat ran scarlet still, its surface traced by spiny ripples. In a sudden flurry of earth-shaking tremors, the bridge collapsed, it ahead of the rest of the world by only a second or less.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

In the morning Ariadne was a phantom. She drifted from her bed into the bathroom, and stared into the mirror on the wall for a full three minutes before she registered the state of her reflection. After a shower she felt a little better, but part of her mind was still away from the waking world, trying to piece together what exactly had gone down the night before.

He – it – had been there, in a place with gray walls, she remembered. A strange place, now that she thought about it. And it had done something terrifying. But _why_ , why had it come back to begin with?

It was so frustrating without the Pasiv! Dreaming nowadays – ever since she'd met Dom Cobb, that is – was like wandering the most beautiful city on earth, trying to soak it all in, but having lost her brand-new glasses. Would she ever see it clearly?

Arthur met her in the lobby and together they went out into a metropolis among the largest in the world. Though he glanced over his shoulder every now and again, Arthur was certain it was no danger to venture out into public now. Anyone with any clue as to what they had just pulled off would've come after them by now, he thought as they boarded a city bus. And the folks out here definitely didn't know.

The pair spent the following hours wandering a street fair, and had lunch by way of an ice cream cart. The sun and the Hollywood sign both stared down at them. Ariadne slowly began to forget whatever details remained of last night's nightmare, consumed by the city and the sights and the people – and of course, rather trivial intellectual debates with Arthur. The architect versus the strategist.

Once, strolling along Hollywood Boulevard, no less, Ariadne bumped shoulders with a broad-shouldered businessman passing in the other direction. He shot her an accusing glare, gripped his briefcase, and continued on his way, never breaking stride.

"Hmph," Ariadne mumbled, sidling closer to Arthur as they walked. "I guess you own the whole damn sidewalk once you've made it," she remarked as the man rejoined his group at a crosswalk, all of them clad in the expensive-suit-and-Bluetooth-earpiece uniforms of the upper class. All of them wearing frowns.

Arthur glanced at her when she turned back around. He smirked. "Success is an intangible, flexible concept. What makes you think he's 'made it?' Any of them?"

"Nothing – I mean, look at him."

"Just a snob, Ariadne. Don't you get those in Paris?"

"Of course. France and the US have similar capitalist economies, prioritizing the accumulation of wealth and resulting in its incorporation into social standing." She rattled it off like she was taking an economics test, and Arthur smiled at her sarcasm.

"Well I'll bet anything it's worse in America. And not to judge a group for an individual, but if we're getting philosophical here, I'd hesitate to say your new friend's made it. I think _those_ are more probably the folks that've 'made it.'" He pointed to a group of laughing twenty-somethings, all clustered around their vending stalls full of work at the faire. A yellow Labrador wove between their legs, tail wagging vigorously. One juggled torches at the edge of the faire before a small crowd. They were all standing on the street corner a couple blocks back, dressed in plaid and secondhand jeans and selling art. But they were smiling.

"Again, if we're going to be philosophical," Arthur continued, "An American writer named Angelou said, 'making a living is not the same thing as making a life.' Thus is altered a definition of success."

"I suppose if self-fulfillment is indeed a more direct path to happiness than wealth, you're right."

"Work and wealth may bring the others the same happiness," Arthur relented, "but unlikely. If not . . . going in to the same place every day to run the same rat-race the same way, hardly ever moving forward, to buy your way to that happiness . . . just seems like taking the long way around."

After a moment, Ariadne asked, "What about our, um, work? Does it make you happy?" Obviously though, there had been no shortage of wealth gain thus far.

Arthur smiled down at the names immortalized in the pavement beneath their shoes.

"It makes me happy," he said, glancing back up, "that my work has brought me to someone who will debate the intrinsic nature of success with me on the Hollywood Walk of Fame." Clearly there was more to it, but Arthur would say no more as they wandered their way back to their temporary home.

The orchids were there to greet Ariadne as she keyed back into her hotel room.

Her feet ached from walking all day – in the real world, for once – so despite her hesitations she wasted no time drawing a warm bath and then slipping off to bed.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Thunder boomed overhead. The table rattled with the force. Ariadne recoiled, only to find her wrists were clamped tight in heavy shackles. Like a convict's.

Lightning struck, illuminating the unearthly eyes of the man before her. He sunk down against the table, opposite, bringing his devilish face level with hers. He spoke, only staggered whispers emanating once more. They seemed almost to have a physical presence, like ghosts, as they floated past.

The lightning flared, closer this time, and a stranger wandering the background was struck and fell still. Ariadne pulled at her chains. She could feel the clouds swirling overhead, dipping closer, closer, and then . . . words! Nonsense words, but clear words all the same.

The thin lips before her parted just barely, tongue sliding over sharp teeth as the first semi-comprehensible sounds came through.

She woke with _'_ _cōnvenee may noctay'_ echoing in her mind.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Ariadne never did remember many details from that night's dream, but then again, she didn't try to. She rushed herself from bed and prepared breakfast right away, trying to forget by busying herself. A coffee and an omelet later, the nonsense phrase was the only detail that remained.

For lack of better plans, Ariadne spent much of the day watching American television.

She flipped from boring infomercials to brainless reality shows, and finally settled on a retro channel movie, _War Games_. It was the sort of nerdy American 80's thing she used to watch with her roommates at college. The flick was about a genius computer that must be talked out of competing in a game that's much more than the teenage heroes bargained for. After much panicking by the government, the computer realizes that the only winning move is not to play at all.

The credits began to roll, and Ariadne stretched.

Finally, when she could sit no longer, she changed into a skintight athletic tank, which normally got wear maybe once a week at most, and headed to the hotel's in-house exercise gym. If she was going to sit in a hotel room and be rich, she figured, it at least wasn't going to make her fat.

She picked out a treadmill and jogged a few miles there, and Arthur turned up at one point and swam laps in the pool next door. Ariadne kept her mind off of the running by alternating between watching Arthur and thinking again about the man in her dreams. ( _In_ her dreams, not of. There's a difference.)

Should she try to remember? What would happen if she did? Would that make the nightmares return, or prove useful in beating them away? And, the most nagging question of all – should she tell Arthur?

On one hand, she was almost certain Arthur would know what to do about these episodes of terror. He was experienced. He had connections. On the other, she was almost certain he wouldn't approve of her lying to him and keeping the truth for so long. And she had an inexplicable, insatiable desire for his approval.

Perhaps, she thought suddenly, with the Pasiv's help she could fix whatever glitch had surfaced in her subconscious herself, once and for all, and Arthur would never have to know. _Perfect_.

He must've climbed out of the pool (a shame she'd missed it) because her thoughts were broken by a very wet pat on the shoulder as he walked out of the gym, saying something about going on conference call with Eames and Cobb – an event that was sure to take hours, Ariadne predicted, judging by how he and Eames loved to bicker.

As soon as Arthur left, Ariadne stepped off the treadmill, having surpassed her original goal by a full mile and a half (according to the treadmill – in reality, she'd barely moved) while lost in thought, anyway, and darted upstairs.

She waited at the desk in Arthur's room while he showered off. When he emerged and invited her in on the conference call, she politely declined, pretending to be engrossed in a fashion catalogue left out on the desk.

"At least come to dinner with me later," he said. "I've got a favorite restaurant in town. Great wine. Cute locale. You'd like it."

Ariadne agreed; what she intended to do here would only take a few minutes of her day, at least in this world. She doubted she'd like any restaurant so fancy, but, hey, Arthur was going, and this was starting to sound a whole lot like a date.

As soon as he was out the door, she wasted no time. She dropped the magazine and pulled the Pasiv out from the closet. (Arthur had insisted on taking the call at another location, because he'd bugged and burglarized too many hotel rooms himself to think them very secure.) Tuning the Pasiv turned out to be not as complicated as she'd thought, and she got the sedatives calibrated pretty quickly. This felt a little dishonest, a little criminal to be doing without Arthur's supervision, but she reminded herself that she, too was a part of the team and had as much a right to the Pasiv as anyone.

She was going to remember something else, but she was under before she got the chance.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

The dreamscape Ariadne had prepared was a simple one: an only slightly altered model of the hotel they were staying in. Normally she wouldn't make something so . . . real, but she hadn't had much prep time. The Fischer levels had taken weeks. And, besides, she had her totem, and there was no one else in the dream.

She wandered the mostly-deserted halls, and few of the projections even stopped to stare. Most were nameless strangers, a few were friends from college or even family. She was about to start missing them all over, when she ran into a projection of Arthur on the third floor. He wore a three piece suit and carried a leather briefcase. When she smiled at him, he merely shook his head in seeming disapproval and walked on his way. Typical Arthur.

The next few minutes of the dream were relatively uneventful; she wasn't sure anymore what exactly what she'd come here to do. She spent a few minutes adjusting her hair and experimenting with different outfits in the hall mirror behind the plastic orchids, and then a few more crumbling the skyscrapers outside the window. She'd become so absorbed in rebuilding them to her tastes (and almost convinced that what or whomever had plagued her was gone) that when the monster crept up behind her, she panicked.

His hand fell on her shoulder, cold and heavy like wet clay. She jolted and spun around.

The man was standing there again, a scowl upon his face and those horrible eyes staring into hers. She felt naked.

Wait, she _was_ naked, this time. _Shit_. Stupid cliché nightmare things.

He advanced on her, and she backed into the wall so hard the base of her skull throbbed with the impact. Ariadne's heart pounded. The monster never touched her again, but within a moment his palms slammed into the wallpaper on either side of her head. There was a second of utter quiet, where he breathed out, and she, in, an unearthly chill filling her from the inside, perforating from her lungs out. It was so silent in that moment, she could hear the man's watch – a polished Weiss, she'd seen as his sleeve came up – beside her ear. Time might have frozen, held up by the man's murderous, haunting gaze, had it not been for the Weiss' ticking.

He leaned closer, their noses just inches apart.

She almost screamed, then, but it stopped halfway up her throat and it came out a gurgling squeal. The hotel shuddered. The man, despite his scowl, quirked an eyebrow.

Ariadne tried to compose herself; tried to remember. What _had_ she come here to do?

She managed to render a jumper on herself, and reached into its pocket to feel her totem. Her fingers closed around the smooth, cold brass, and the weight was solid.

 _Still here._

The memory of her intent came back through the fog. _Deep breath._ Ariadne placed her hands on the man's chest and shoved him back, hard.

"Bug _off!_ What do you want?!" she said.

He stumbled backwards and smirked once he'd steadied himself. More nonsense speak. Ariadne cringed at those filed teeth – _my what big teeth you have (all the better to eat you with my dear)_ – and those eyes. A serpent's eyes. His skin was pale, almost grey, and his outfit had changed little from their last meeting.

Either this projection couldn't hear her or wasn't willing to respond, because he showed only indifference to her protest. But he was still a repeated threat. She knew, suddenly, what she had to do: this demon was a thing to be locked away like Cobb's demons, like those memories built so deep into the secure corners of the dreamworld they could never hope to escape unassisted.

Ariadne bolted. She ran down the hall, towards the elevators. She'd lure the man into the basement of the building, she'd decided. It would be a secure hold, not unlike Cobb's fortress, until she could sort out something better.

The beige walls seemed to stretch only further on, though, as she ran. The hall telescoped; the ceiling sign marking the elevators grew ever-smaller. Like the frog in the mathematical paradox, she'd never reach the end of the passage, it seemed.

It felt like she was running underwater, slow and burdened with invisible resistance, but Ariadne didn't dare look back to see if she was being pursued. Somehow she knew the monster would follow, anyway. Nightmares wouldn't be scary if the werewolves and tarantulas got bored and walked off halfway through. What actually happened, though, she didn't expect.

The elevator sign loomed at last, and Ariadne wheeled into the cavity in the hall. Then, she looked back around the corner, and was surprised. No one was there; the hallway was completely deserted yet again . . . but. But something was happening.

It took her a moment to put her finger on what was wrong: the hotel was silent. In dreamworlds the mind always supplied some sort of background noise – some cars, the wind, projections' chatter. Not now. It was dead silent; not even the swaying chandeliers on the ceiling made noise as their shadows pinwheeled.

One look out the window showed Ariadne the world outside had gone completely ink-black. A pitch-colored fog engulfed the sun, then the buildings nearest, then the hotel's fire escape. Ariadne's breath formed a miniature cloud before her when she exhaled. It was cold there the way fever chills are – not bitter, but just cold enough to make the back of the neck prickle.

She reached out to the dreamworld with her conscious mind, visualizing the outside, trying to call it back from the brink of collapse, but her mind's tendril hit a wall. A jolt of electricity shot through it; a death rattle. She'd been cut off. Control had been ripped from her like a soul stolen away by a Dementor.

A voice, cold and gravelly but clear as the day, reverberated through the air, through her mind: _You really shouldn't have fought this._

The ink-black began to creep, in sinewy veins, down through the walls. It started at the edges of the ceiling, and ran down the plaster and paper like alien molasses. The hall lamps she'd so meticulously copied began to flicker. Ariadne backed away, out of the corridor. The black dripped down to the carpet in slow motion. It slithered with the meter of a lazy crocodile, one gelatinous river, across the floor. She was transfixed by it the way a deer is transfixed by an oncoming vehicle.

Ariadne's fingers trembled, but the hotel, for once, did not. She took one stiff, staggered step back. Then another.

The elevator _dinged_ behind her, and she jumped.

Out stepped none other than her monster; somehow he'd cheated the dreamworld and beaten her here, to the elevator shafts. And worse: with him was that projection of Arthur, a Glock to his head. So much for her plan of luring the man away, into the basement. The monster shoved projection-Arthur out of the elevator, and the doors closed behind them.

Projection-Arthur looked up at Ariadne, eyes pleading, and she immediately regretted building a dreamworld so similar to its real counterpart. _It's just a dream_ , she chanted to herself, looking frantically around for evidence to confirm it was so. _(what if it were real what if it were really Arthur –)_ She felt for her totem, at the same time willing a gun to materialize at her hip, but her control was little.

" _Cōnvenī mē nocte_ _,"_ the monster said, tongue slithering haphazardly out-of-sync. It was still nonsense talk, but Ariadne felt it wasn't entirely unfamiliar.

"I don't –" she began, but the rest of her sentence was cut off by the all-consuming echo of a gunshot.

Projection-Arthur ( _or Arthur? It couldn't be Arthur? Not really. God, God, not Arthur_ ) collapsed forward on the ground, blood swirling with the ink-black in the carpet.

Ariadne's head swam. She froze, as if it were her that had been struck. Time slowed down. She groped for a gun, but couldn't make it so. She felt for it over and over again at her hip, like a broken record, gaping at the body all the while.

Finally, she backed back into the opposite wall, shaking her head slowly. _No; no; whatever it is you want – no_. . . Shock was taking over, but her monster didn't seem to care.

He raised his arm, his face contorted in what was almost disappointment, and fired.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Ariadne bolted awake.

After she returned her breathing to normal, she looked at the clock. She'd only been out for five minutes, and it felt like negative two hours. She was more exhausted than before.

 _Why?_

When she remembered what had happened, something in her chest knotted in actual, physical pain. It twisted tighter than she'd thought possible.

That had been _Arthur_ back there. Cobb'd said he'd seen it happen before, sure, but that had been in a shared dream. This was hers alone. What was _wrong_ with her?

With shaking hands she replaced the Pasiv in the closet, and spent the next hour thinking it over, to no avail, in the shower. She stayed in until the water got too cold to bear. After, she took some Fischer-job money from her safe and went out to the nearest boutique to buy a dress to wear to dinner. No harm in at least _acting_ normal. The one she settled on was plain red, with subtle ruffled bands in the fabric, and fell to about her thigh. She didn't spend much time picking it out, or the shoes. The clerk gave her a strange look when she paid for it all in cash.

Ariadne hurried back to her hotel with the thing in a laundromat bag. In her room, she put it on and was just finishing her makeup when Arthur arrived back.

When she opened the door to his knock, his mouth actually parted a bit when he saw her.

"You look nice," he said.

"Thanks," replied Ariadne. "You don't look so bad yourself."

Not that he ever did. He still would've worn that suit if they'd been going to McDonald's.

And most importantly, there he was, standing tall and unharmed and with a smile so _alive_.

They took a cab to _La Bruschetta_ , a nondescript little restaurant outside of downtown. The place was packed between a couple of other businesses on a frequented street, and soft, off-white lighting spilled from the inside as the sun, mercifully, sank lower. It wasn't too crowded on a weekday, so they had a table in minutes.

A rotund man led them inside to a table lit by a single peach candle, dropped off their menus, and bid them well with a knowing smile.

Ariadne was shifting between eyeing the candle flame warily and looking over the menu for the fourth time – not really reading it, per say – when their server reappeared. Ariadne looked to Arthur, and Arthur held up one finger and ordered for both of them.

They ate largely in silence; the food was delicious and Ariadne was too deep in dissecting her own mind to strike up conversation. Finally, after they'd almost cleared their plates, Arthur prompted her.

"Well?" he said. He splayed his palm across the tablecloth.

"Great," responded Ariadne. The air was too hot and too cold at the same time. She tried to smile at him, and he gave a self-satisfied smile back.

"I apologize we haven't been out more," he said thoughtfully, looking down, "but what do you think of America so far?"

 _America, America . . . think . . ._ "It's . . . big," Ariadne ventured, "The cityscape is amazing. It goes on forever; it's an infinity compacted into a patch of earth. I do miss my college, though." The older streets of Paris were quaint. She hoped Professeur Miles was still providing an alibi for her absence.

Arthur's face fell slightly.

"I didn't mean – I mean, I do like being here, with–with you."

"I know what you meant. Would you still like to hear my proposal?" said Arthur. He swirled his glass of wine.

She stalled a moment. "What?" Her heart was buzzing nearly as much as her head, now.

Arthur sighed and leaned across the little table, one hand cupped over the other. Ariadne did the same. He spoke in a low voice. "On the call today we discussed, in part, another gig Cobb thinks he found us. East coast. I wanted to tell you, to invite you in, but . . . well, that's part of the reason I suggested going out – I think the hotel's being watched."

"You think . . . ? Why?" she whispered.

Arthur leaned back, took a sip of zinfandel, then returned.

"I just had a strange feeling. Two members of the housekeeping staff on our floors were different today, didn't you notice?" Ariadne couldn't say she had. "Wasn't time for a new rotation. We can look into it more when we get back, but we just need to be careful a few more days." Ariadne nodded.

"So, you thought we should come out to dinner to talk . . . about a job?"

"I said that was _part_ of the reason." He smirked, and glanced sidelong out at the restaurant. It was mostly empty, candles flickering on unoccupied tables, throwing soft shadows on the walls. They were the last table in the back.

Half the waitstaff was looking at them, though: this strange couple huddled intently over their half-empty plates, whispering harsh tones. Ariadne glanced over. Like projections, the men in aprons kept on staring.

"Give me a kiss," Arthur mumbled suddenly. And she did.

The waitstaff turned away.

It was soft and brief as their first one (if dream kisses counted), but this one felt a tiny bit more real, in more than just the literal sense of the word, too. It was real like laughter, real like drinking champagne, like those fizzling sparklers that Americans loved.

Arthur pulled away, and when he opened his eyes, Ariadne was already looking into them. He cleared his throat.

"I, uh . . . anyway, you're in on the job if you want. Cobb's out, obviously, so we need all hands. We're supposed to get confirmation next month," he said, hushed.

Ariadne's face burned. _Was this to be but their parlor trick? Feigning affection to buy privacy?_

She wasn't sure, either, whether to agree to the job or not; she doubted any new client of theirs would like to meet her monster. But Arthur looked so hopeful, and after an instant she realized what he was doing – the impossible – and hoped she wasn't imagining . . . _He was buying time. He was offering her a way to stay with the team longer; he was buying them time to stay together._

"Sure," she said, but even as they made to leave she realized it was a promise she couldn't keep, at least as things stood. Running back to Paris wasn't optimal, but she could not perform her impossibility of getting rid of this monster.

Arthur slung his arm casually around her waist as they walked out, and Ariadne bit her lip. Now she just _couldn't_ say anything. She couldn't ruin tonight by telling Arthur now.

Lies have this quality, though, where they grow heavier on one's chest as time goes on. They tighten the throat a bit more with every passing breath. They settle in the back of one's mind, and shudder with every footfall.

Lies to Arthur would not do, Ariadne thought as they strolled up the street, peering into shop windows. They paused by one to admire the elaborate home furnishings scene within. In a pristine living room, a mannequin family sat on a designer couch wearing designer clothes. Two mannequin children played a board game at a chic table. All smiled lifeless plaster smiles, with frozen, painted eyes.

Ariadne stopped looking through the window and simply looked _at_ it. Her reflection stared back with dull, tired eyes, its gaze combing her face and frazzled hair.

"Ariadne, is something wrong?" Arthur said. He, disappointingly, released her waist and grasped her forearm instead.

"I, I just . . ." It hurt to think about it; the dreams were still there, right behind her eyelids. They burned like migraines, and fought to be seen amongst the translucent images reflected on the glass.

"You can tell me, Ariadne." _Deep breath._

She turned to face him. "I've been seeing that projection. The one from the dream that collapsed on us. I guess he must have been mine – he keeps coming back, every night, and . . ."

Arthur checked that their area of the street was empty. He leaned closer. "Is he . . . collapsing things again? Hurting you?"

Suddenly it all came pouring out. "Yes, I think he is. Not directly – one time he set a building on fire, that was scary, but he's just kind of a jerk, you know? He keeps hurting . . . other people, things, and it's like a regular nightmare without the Pasiv; I'm frozen and I can't help and I don't know it's a dream, but I have to watch. It's horrible. It's like torture. Like, I think he wants something from me."

"You think it wants something? Why?" Arthur had been silent up until then, processing the details of Ariadne's dilemma.

"Before he started, um, hurting things, he would talk to me. I think he was asking questions, but I could never understand what he was saying."

"Strange," Arthur commented. And then, "Do you think he'd stop, if you gave him whatever it is he's after?"

Ariadne thought about it a minute. It _did_ feel like the torment had direction. Purpose. "I think so. But I don't know what he wants, and even if I did this would be silly. It's only my dream. Why does it keep coming back? I feel like I'm losing my mind . . ."

Arthur nodded, and stared at the ground a few moments in silence. "I heard a rumor," he finally began, "a couple years ago, from a buddy of mine in the U.S. Air Force. He exists, but he knows some of the guys in suits that, uh, don't. They're what you call Special Ops, you know? High-up, dangerous kind of work – chasing Bin Laden and stuff. The kind of work you'd probably want to rehearse a few times before actually putting yourself in the warzone.

"The point is, this guy was involved in the military Pasiv program from the start. The machine we've got is contraband and a few gens old, but it's the best we can do right now. After a few of those slipped through the government's fingers and went to people like Dom and I, they tightened up security a bit. But they kept developing.

"Anyway, I heard a rumor that some of the guys there – especially those using a few generations newer than ours – had a couple issues. Sometimes they'd use Pasiv to try and avoid PTSD in the soldiers, but afterwards, after they left, it had the opposite effect . . . The subconscious will sometimes latch onto a thing you've deemed dangerous, even something you saw only once, in your mind, for a moment, and pit you up against it over and over in dreams."

"False trials by fire. Psychologists think that has to do with the theory of evolution, and natural selection," Ariadne remembered from her General Ed. classes.

"Exactly. It's a survival mechanism built into the subconscious, same as the military's rehearsals but on a smaller scale. Practice makes perfect."

"Yeah, that makes sense, but . . . this happened even when I _was_ on the Pasiv. Again. Why?" At this Arthur stopped. His brow furrowed.

"Wait. You used the Pasiv again? And it came back?" A _lone_ architect, on the Pasiv, should have had total control. No subconscious direction and nobody else there in the dream to compete with. He didn't doubt Ariadne's skills for a second; he'd seen her lose countless projections in her mazes. And the worst her projections ever did was stare, anyhow.

Ariadne nodded, an apology hiding under her tongue. "This afternoon."

His face went blank. "Show me."

So, back at the hotel, she did.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

They were walking around an urban block this time; something a little more usual for them.

They entered a random skyscraper, gray and glass and cold and towering. They simply walked for a while, taking care not to look too long at any particular place. Somehow, Ariadne knew her monster would find them.

Find them he did.

Within a few minutes of dream-time, there was this whole incident where the sprinkler system turned on, but whatever it sprayed was flammable rather than, uh, not, and Arthur and Ariadne got backed into an elevator by the monster. He stood amongst the flames, yet his cloak didn't burn. Nor did it puncture when Arthur conjured a pistol and shot him squarely in the chest. He'd thought of a vest by now, apparently.

The elevator ended up getting stuck between floors, and filled with smoke fast. The pair pried the doors open and just barely wriggled out. Arthur limped down most of the hall, and it was minutes before either of them could stop coughing.

From then on, they took the stairs.

Arthur and Ariadne left that building and fled to a smaller, squatter one with glass walls on the oceanfront. They walked the stairs some more in that one, talking, and Ariadne suspected he had built them as Penrose, given how long they climbed them without reaching the top floor. The routine of it was strangely calming.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

"So, you weren't kidding about this guy," Arthur said when they woke. He turned off the sedative and scooted to the edge of the hotel bed.

"No, I wasn't. I mean, I'm sure it's not as huge a deal if I could control him, like Dom does Mal, but I don't know how . . ." she shrugged.

"And you said fleeing him didn't work? Talking harshly? Pulling a gun?" Ariadne shook her head no.

"Okay, um, he's got an Achilles' Heel somewhere . . . do you remember anything else from the other dreams? Anything he did, anything he said?"

"No – well, yes, there was one thing."

"What?"

"Normally, I couldn't hear him right, remember?"

"Yeah, me neither . . ."

"But, so, this one time, he murmured something, almost to himself, and I could make it out. He said, 'cōnvenī mē nocte.' I looked it up; I think it's –"

"Meet me at night,' in Latin," Arthur remarked, "Yes, I know . . . Well, seeing as how he was a character already in your dreams _at_ _night_ , I don't think that's anything wholly unexpected for him to say."

"No, that's not it. I think I get why he said it, but . . ."

"But what?"

She paused.

"Arthur, _I don't speak Latin_."

* * *

 **Leave a review, positive or negative, idc - it only takes a second! Constructive criticism is most welcome! - Hazel**


	3. Expostus

**Hello! Here is Part #3. I would really appreciate some reviews. You can scroll straight to the bottom and say you hated it and it's incoherent and if it were in print instead of online you'd burn it, and I literally won't be offended. But I'm curious what the reactions are because I know this is kind of an unconventional story...?**

 **I do not own Inception, the Ragged Point Inn, Donnie Darko, Gauloises, Weiss, or Clue. Or a blue sports car :'(**

* * *

"They say that dreams come true, but forget to mention that nightmares are dreams, too." – Oscar Wilde

* * *

There were a few beats of silence.

"At all?" said Arthur finally. He was only slightly put off that his _cupita_ had not taken an interest in the root of all romance languages, but that was the least of his concerns here.

"I've never even taken a class! I skipped them all to fit in extra math credits. And the phrase isn't a famous quote, I just looked it up on a translator today."

"You've never heard it before? Maybe you just don't–"

"No. I'm positive. No prior knowledge, no Pasiv. How could it have surfaced in my dreams?"

That was a question to which Arthur had no real answer. _Cōnvenī mē nocte_ _. . . ?_ There was one thought – a wild guess, really – that presented itself, but it was utterly impossible. _Absolutely not_. But, then, he thought of no other avenues to explore.

"I'm gonna call Eames."

Calling Eames for help wasn't optimal, to say the least, but if there was anyone that would know a thing or two about inexplicable identities surfacing in the dreamworld, it was him. And Arthur wasn't about to put something this touchy in front of Dom. Dom was just free of it.

They went outside, and Arthur dialed one of his colleague's burn cells from a payphone on the street corner. Eames, arguably the sketchiest character in their little group, was going under the radar again sometime this week, Arthur knew; he wouldn't have liked to be reached on a traceable line.

Ariadne stood by while Arthur dialed. She exhaled slowly, deliberately. The burden of the monster was still there, of course, but as always when one reveals something pent up, it was now shared between its two bearers. She was too relieved to feel guilt for stressing Arthur. Telling him her secret, her trouble, had felt, peculiarly, like a time when she was much younger: Around eight, she'd grown her hair out down to her waist, and when it had finally been cut, she'd marveled at how light it suddenly felt, how it bounced when she walked. She hadn't realized how much it weighed until it was off her shoulders.

Drumming one hand atop the phone box, Arthur spoke quietly into the handset the moment the call went through.

"Eames. It's me."

"I thought you'd never call, dear." The thing about dealing with Eames was, you had to play his games. Normally Arthur was more than happy to have a spat, but today he wanted answers, not jokes. He steeled himself.

"We might have some trouble; I want your take on it."

"Mmm . . . This won't take more than a week, right? I've got a flight to Mombasa in ten days for a _very_ lucrative–"

"I know, I know. No – it's just one thing, I . . . it's Ariadne."

"Dear Lord. Is she pregnant?"

"What? No!" he said, a little too loudly. He leaned closer to the box when she glanced up. "I need you to be very serious for one minute."

"Alright. What's going on?"

Arthur summarized Ariadne's recurring at-bat's against the mysterious dream character.

". . . And I would've chalked it up to night terrors – residual side effects, like the ops guys – if it weren't for the language thing. That's strange – that's impossible," he finished.

"Hmmm . . ." Eames said on the other end, "I've never had that sort of knowledge surface from a projection, even when I wore their skin. Perhaps, ah . . . Yusuf! Yusuf, come here; sit." There was shuffling on their end, the scrape of a patio chair.

Ariadne cringed; soon the whole team would know. She wasn't sure why exactly it embarrassed her, upset her; the memory of the monster was there now, slithering and twisting in the bottom of her gut, and she wanted it gone more than anything. It just seemed like the kind of thing one of their group should be able to manage, she decided. Surely – Cobb had . . . sort of. With Arthur seemingly on her side, she hoped it wouldn't bar her from consideration for future jobs.

". . . My, that is disturbing," Eames muttered.

"What is?" asked Ariadne, closer now, "What did he say?"

"Yusuf's lost his marbles, don't mind him."

Arthur huffed. "Mr. Eames."

The eye roll was almost audible. "Fine. Yusuf suspects there may be a third party involved. Someone remote. Said he went to graduate school with someone researching the area. Quite improbable, I tell you, but I'm afraid I've got nothing."

Arthur swore internally. Eames, master of imitating projections, had come to the same, impossible conclusion: there was another dreamer, whom had somehow slithered his way into their heads without a _physical_ link.

"Well, could Yusuf put us in touch with this person?"

There was chatter for a moment.

"Unlikely," replied Eames at last, "They died five years ago. Perhaps, uh, Dom could . . . well, I doubt he wants to talk about that sort of thing. Perhaps he could put you through to Stephen, then."

"Alright, well, thanks." Eames hung up before Arthur could.

* * *

"Well, that was unproductive," commented Arthur as they strode back to their temporary home.

"We _should_ try Professeur Miles," Ariadne said, "Later, though. Paris is asleep right now."

It was only a ten seconds' ascent on the speedy lift to Ariadne's floor, but still she remained a statue the whole way up. Elevators, friends to every busy architect, had a different tone now. When the doors parted, the pastel orchids were there to greet her again. She stepped off.

"Do you want to try again, in the meantime?" said Arthur. He held the door open when it attempted to separate them.

"Can't hurt. I'll come up in a minute." She wanted to grab her phone, and change out of this itchy dress before she went under. Its hem hugged her thighs as she began to walk again. A Dramamine or two wouldn't have hurt, either, she thought; all this going under was starting to make her stomach turn more than the jetlag had.

The elevator sped on, and Ariadne walked the length of the hall and keyed into her room. The lights were off, the curtains drawn; everything in plain view was as she'd left it.

She'd crossed the foyer twice on her way to the bedchamber, before it occurred to her what was wrong:

Tucked into the shadows of the cloak closet, the little grey safe was ajar.

Ajar and _empty_.

Where the stout leather case had been, now was only a void of black velvet. Ariadne's heart jolted, and she froze, half-bent over the kitchen table. Her fingers trailed the edge of a newspaper. _The safe was empty; the money was gone; someone was here._

Her mind hovered a long time on _the money was gone (the degree is gone the stability is)_ before finally circling back to the ominous _someone was here._

Thoughts racing now, Ariadne pulled her tote bag from its resting place on an armchair (in it her notes, the only other proof on this continent of her involvement in the Fischer job) and fled the room. She reached the stairwell at the end of her hall and took it, even in her heels, two steps at a time.

She fell once – felt the sharp corner of polished wood bruise her shin, stumbled to her feet, and kept running. Breathless a few flights later, she pounded on Arthur's door.

He opened it to find her there, cheeks rosy and panting, and she walked almost through him to get inside. He bolted the lock behind them before opening his mouth.

"What –"

"Someone was," she inhaled, "in my room. Someone stole my money from Saito right out of the safe!"

Arthur's eyes narrowed, and at once he began moving items off of his desk and into a backpack.

"What are you doing?"

To Arthur it was obvious something was wrong, more wrong that just sticky fingers. Too many strange coincidences this week.

"We have to go. Tonight. Someone might be after us. Anything else missing?"

Ariadne thought hard. She had noticed nothing else.

"Is there anything else in that room that could identify you?"

She thought a moment.

"No, it's all in this bag. What do you mean?" She hadn't packed all that much when they crossed the Pacific. She could feel the weight of her totem pressed against her thigh, tucked in the hem of the dress.

"This could be a revenge from someone of Fischer's. Someone might be after _us_ , not just the cash. Or after dreamers. It's happened before," he said as he scanned the rest of the room, "with corporates luring dreamwalkers into, uh, unsavory jobs. I'm not saying that's what this is, I'm just – some things are more valuable than money."

She'd heard about this sort of thing, the thing Arthur suspected, before, in conversation with the team before the Fischer job. To be the talk of the corporate elite was most often but not always a good thing. Envious eyes would occasionally take drastic measures to get what they wanted; powerful people were used to getting results fast. There had been instances in the past where extractors, chemists, or people of similar talents _(architects)_ had been bribed or even held for ransom in exchange for performing a deed.

It had happened to Eames once, or so he liked to claim. The CFO of a chemical startup company called KeirTech, Tomas Keir, he said, had once detained him by means of secret police and demanded that he find out the formula behind a rival giant's product. This brash CFO's flaw was that, put simply, he did not know Eames. His mistake proved fatal. Eames escaped, and their brief exchange was the reason no one in recent years had ever heard of KeirTech.

Word of the Fischer job might have spread to another company. A gentech company, perhaps. That rising field was equal parts competitive and secretive. Or, worse, someone on the inside at Fischer's empire had gotten their names. That would ruin the operation (if the breaking-up had not already been set in motion) and that sort of thing usually didn't end well for the dreamwalking party. And Ariadne was nothing like Eames.

Though, she mused, of the two of them staying in this same hotel, Arthur was clearly the more valuable of when it came to their unconventional profession. She was a novice. If it was a dreamer someone wanted to lure, why not steal _his_ briefcase?

"C'mon," Arthur said, "Let's move." In a moment he had his backpack over one shoulder, and the Pasiv clasped firmly in his other hand. His lips were straight, his face calm; his dark eyes focused. Dealing with situations like this was not the norm, but it was a part of the job. The price of the life. It was the part that made it uncomfortable, but then again comfortable wasn't always good. The risks, the pressure, the secrets – these hurt, but it was a good hurt, necessary from time to time to them attaining potential. Like stretching.

As soon as they stepped out the door, he went silent. Ariadne followed him, her heels the only sound as they walked to the end of the hall. They descended two flights to Ariadne's floor, and Arthur was about to step out onto it when her hand closed around his bicep.

" _Stop._ "

He froze, his free hand on the stairwell door. It was a moment before he saw it, too.

In the hall, a lone figure dressed in black emerged from Ariadne's room. He was slender, almost youth-like, his movements graceful. A hood from a baggy jacket was drawn over his head, so Arthur couldn't see his face when he emerged from the shadows. Just a smooth, pointed chin. Carrying nothing, he darted across the hall and disappeared as quickly as he'd come. Ariadne's door swung shut, the _Do Not Disturb_ sign still dangling from its knob.

They decided against going back to check her room, and descended faster. The minutes blurred and they reached the ground floor and sprinted out through the elegant lobby. The shadows cast by the crystalline chandeliers looked, tonight, foreboding rather than welcoming.

Thinking quickly, Arthur made his way to the street corner to hail a cab. If anyone of importance had seen them exit, a speedy departure was crucial.

One of the canary sedans approached, and they climbed in the back. Arthur leaned forward and gave directions to the driver. They were off.

"We going to the metro station?" Ariadne asked.

"No, I think we ought to go further."

Hence she was surprised when the taxi sped towards the airport. They weren't leaving the country, were they? She couldn't see geographic distance deterring her monster, nor would putting themselves an ocean away from their team be of any help if someone in the _real_ world was out to get them.

They only went as far as the rent-a-car dealerships, though; Arthur suggested they stay in the mainland for the time being. He selected a car quickly – fast-looking and midnight blue. _(Men,_ Ariadne thought.) He paid the clerk double in cash to persuade him from looking too closely at their false passports.

(Every team member had at least one bearing a name that was not their own. Sometimes, to see the world in the way they needed, to do the work they had to do, they had to do so under another name. They were no less themselves for it, though.)

A man took his place in line behind them, one of few customers at the dealership at that hour. Arthur observed. Tall, medium build, African-American, graying hair, mid-forties, perhaps. He wore the clothes of a businessman and frameless glasses, an engineer's level pen in his breast pocket, and his smile was warm. An attendant called him forth to the kiosk next to Arthur's and took his ID.

"Dr. Marx, welcome back, sir." She entered his information into the computer.

About then Arthur received the keys to their ride.

"Hey – do you know the fastest way out to the highway?" he said to the man, a little more pointed than he'd meant it. He was tired and wound and used to being in charge, and the situation tonight had drawn instincts out of him. For a moment he regretted it, but the stranger wasn't angry; he only shook his head.

"Sorry, I don't live here. Only consulting for a firm for now," he tapped a temporary lanyard nametag, "but maybe someday soon." He smiled, winked, and went back to his rental business. Arthur and Ariadne left then, and as luck would have it their car came with internal navigation to guide them away anyway.

It was the middle of the night by the time the pair sped out, Arthur at the wheel, past Beverly Hills and on into the forested land beyond Malibu. Arthur had no real destination in mind yet, only _away_. _Away_ until they could stop for breath long enough to begin to solve the mystery of a) who had invaded Ariadne's hotel room and b) what had invaded Ariadne's mind. Or, as Yusuf had somewhat errantly suspected, both the same. He pressed his foot to the gas pedal, his formal dinner shoes pinching hard at his toes, and pushed the car to the speed limit. Instinct said they ought to not leave the country yet. But _away. Evade and away._

In the early hours of the morning Arthur eased the car off of Highway One, and pulled into a little motel parking lot. Ariadne hadn't dozed off; she was still up and staring straight ahead, at the water. The moon hung over it like in a painting, waxing now, its rays illuminating the fog off the seaside mountains. It made it look like a proper cloud.

The aptly-named Ragged Point Inn sat on the very edge of the continent, an endless expanse of ocean before it. A cold breeze rushed up the cliffs and over the place as the two newcomers walked inside. Arthur got two adjacent rooms, and again the transaction was under cover of darkness, all cash. He led down the hall, thinking to himself how odd they must look; two people in formal attire carrying next to no luggage despite the fact they were at a little inn off a winding highway in the middle of nowhere, sandwiched between the sea and the mountains.

There was no one out tonight to see them, though, and each went quietly to bed. The place had the feel of a beach house crossed with a homey country cabin.

Now, Arthur was tired; maneuvering an Audi down a dewy winding road well above the legal speed was tasking, to say the least. But sleep never comes easy to those who want it most, and especially not to unaided dreamwalkers. He set his pack on the writing desk and the Pasiv on the nightstand, and sat in his room an hour or so, lights out, window open, still unable to quell the working of his brain.

Thus he was awake still, and heard the gasps.

Arthur broke in Ariadne's door quietly (something that _is_ possible, if you know how to do it as well as Arthur), just in time for the nightmare to end.

Ariadne woke, stifling shivers, tears already leaking though her eyes had barely time to open in this world. Water from smoke as much as fear. She pressed her palms to her forehead, willing it to stop. Arthur had probably seen worse, she thought. Cobb had definitely been through worse. What a cowardly way to be – if only Miles could see her now. What would Cobb think? What did Arthur –

She noticed him standing there.

"I'm sorry," Arthur mumbled suddenly. He sat on the edge of the bed. "It's just . . ."

She guessed he'd started to say _'It's just a dream!'_ like mothers do to their frightened children, but had, considering all they'd done in dreams, thought better.

He gave her a reassuring hug instead. Given their position it would have been forward coming from anyone else, but she knew he hadn't meant it that way. He was exhausted, she was scared. She hugged him back. He was stable. He was Reason. Clinging to him in the physical sense and beyond was all that kept her from floating away on the dizzy tailspin of these strange dreams. After a few moments, Arthur released her and started to pull away.

"Arthur," she said. She let her hand hover on his shoulder.

He froze.

"Stay."

Arthur waited a moment, considering. His pressed collar suddenly seemed much too tight, and his heart felt as if it were trying to escape out his throat regardless. He liked her, certainly – really, really liked her – and, while she hadn't outwardly expressed that she returned that until just now, she did seem to find comfort in his presence. What was he waiting for, then? Only when he'd decided that he was okay with whatever _stay_ entailed did he turn back.

Wordlessly, Arthur climbed into bed next to her. He slid between the sheets fully clothed, and fluffed and settled onto the nearest pillow. Ariadne shuffled over and lay her head on his shoulder. She was asleep, however, within minutes, and the only things he ended up taking off were those ridiculous shoes.

* * *

Did God create the continents, just to watch them be eaten away? Just to watch them die slowly, rubbed raw and pored out at the edges by brine? The powder-gray cliffs outside the Ragged Point Inn were fading, stolen into the blue abyss in ceaseless rhythm a pinch of limestone at a time. The waves were a seismic broken record; its music calming and timeless.

It reminded Ariadne of a place she'd been before, once, with Dom, and she didn't like it. The Pacific wind came up from below the cliffs, beat at the windowpane with meaty fists, unsettling the place for a moment, and she looked away. There was singing on the radio somewhere, crackling in and out with the gusts.

"– _And I find it kind of funny–"_

Arthur was in the shower across the hall, and had been since Ariadne had woken. _Click;_ _9:04_. The time on the old radio clock on the nightstand snapped into place. She had had no more unusual dreams – not that she could remember, anyway. Maybe, just maybe, it was over. But Arthur was a satirist, a realist, not an optimist, and he would never share that hope.

 _"–I find it kind of sad–"_

He returned a few minutes – or hours, with the waves you could never tell – later. For a moment there was relative silence.

"Any better?" Straight to the point, as always. Ariadne nodded.

"Do you mind if I ask what . . . before . . .?"

"I don't remember much really. No words that time. I was – I was outside on a street in Cretiel – I've been there – trying to use an ATM, but I couldn't read the numbers. And all it dispensed was blank sheets of paper. It was cold. It was only a few minutes but sometime I saw him, that man, on the street corner. He was just waiting, smoking a cigarette, but it looked like he was looking around for something."

"For you? The dreamer."

Ariadne nodded again. She rubbed her forehead. Tired, sallow, and searching. "He saw me and just froze, and then all of the sudden–"

They were interrupted by a knock on the already-open door. One of the keepers was there. Floral apron and a terse smile. She told them breakfast was available, but they had better hurry along if they wanted to get any. Having not eaten since an early dinner the eventful night before, Arthur and Ariadne went.

There was a television mounted in the lobby, broadcasting a few basic channels. A trio of children fought for the remote control. The weather channel – sunny and mild, always – was playing its looping, pleasant tune when the little girl first grabbed the remote. She smashed a button and the channel changed to a soap opera where a man and woman argued passionately in Spanish.

A little boy in overalls snatched it from her, then, and turned up the volume. Several guests looked over in annoyance. Their mother, presumably, came over and took the remote then. She scolded them, reduced the volume, and changed the channel back to the morning news before returning to her breakfast.

Arthur and Ariadne tuned it out, mostly, until a familiar name popped up in the broadcast. The name of the hotel in which they'd last stayed. They listened horrified as news anchor was reported that a room at one of the nicest hotels in Los Angeles had been burglarized, and, most startlingly, two of the guests were missing! Their rooms were still closed to all but the police, she said, as per the hotel's privacy agreement, but a statement had been made that they'd gone unaccounted for following the purported theft.

Authorities, the anchor said, were organizing a search for the missing persons.

Ariadne could barely believe what she was hearing. _They suspected Arthur of burglary? Kidnapping?_ They both froze, ducked their heads and ate faster.

Nothing to be done but move on, and solve this more quickly.

Less than half an hour later they were back, this time in Arthur's room, full from pancakes and raspberry syrup. Ariadne finished telling him about her dream. About the cigarettes, the chase, and ultimately the fire. Always the fire.

"Before that, though – he got through that he'd built something, something big. I don't know what or why me, but he seemed to think it was important. It was hard to communicate – blurry – and then, you know . . . ."

Arthur was bent over the coffee table, elbows on his knees, listening intently. He wasn't sure he'd have believed all this, what seemed to be happening, what seemed to be possible, if he hadn't already seen it for himself twice. Would he have believed even Ariadne's word? Of course. He couldn't imagine not. He wasn't sure about the others, though, and he wasn't ready to drag Cobb into this regardless. He sighed.

So this monster-turned-engineer was back again, having followed his teammate a few hundred miles from L.A. . . . He wondered if the geographic distance even mattered with this sort of thing.

"Do you remember anything else, about it? Any details?" Ariadne shook her head.

"It wasn't so clear; it's hard to remember this way . . . ."

"I know," Arthur nodded, and looked down at his desk. He'd been making notes. As Point Man to the extraction team he often found they helped him piece together schemes as much as Ariadne's blueprints aided her builds.

"So you said this – this thing, this projection presents itself consistently as a white male, middle age, dressed in heavy, dark clothing, with abnormal eyes and sharp teeth? And he wears a watch – a Weiss?"

"Yes. I saw, he put it right up next to my face when he . . . pinned me that time."

Arthur nodded again. She hadn't told him all the details of that dream, but the one's he'd heard weren't pretty.

"Wait! That reminds me of something . . . the brands . . ." said Ariadne.

"What?"

"A Weiss is an American-made watch, you said? Californian, even, I think. But those cigarettes he had . . . they were blue. They're Gauloises – it's a French type, I'd know them anywhere. So–"

"So he's dressing up as an American, but deep down he's got a Frenchman's taste," Arthur finished appreciatively, " _If_ we're dealing with a real person, that is; we don't know if Yusuf was onto anything, connecting this character to whomever robbed you in real life. Good work. Keep trying to remember."

Ariadne swallowed and fingered her bishop.

They spent the next few hours in front of Arthur's laptop, shoulder to shoulder on the sofa, hunting for leads. Under the assumption there _was_ a real person behind the theft in connection with Ariadne's nightmares, there had to be a faster way to catch him than driving all over the west coast. Gauloise cigarettes, some stolen money, and a noisy watch weren't much to go off of, she thought, but that wasn't quite all they had. The projection did, after all, speak a dead language.

"Arthur, do a lot of Americans speak Latin?"

"No. Most of my classmates forgot everything the day they graduated." It didn't seem to Ariadne very sensible to take courses in a something for years, only to allow oneself to forget it so easily. _It should be a devotion._ She couldn't imagine letting her knowledge of architecture go to waste, even if she never pursued it in a traditional sense.

"Well, maybe he's still _at_ university?"

Arthur shook his head. "Too young to be ransoming an extraction team. He's probably a bigwig somewhere. High profile." He scrolled on. His eyes were starting to hurt. First, he'd had to hack the inn's wifi modem so they wouldn't be tracked, and then, hours of pages and pages of lists and leads and stores and tags and tickets, forever scrolling with no results. His notebook page was full, and his hand smudged with ink and graphite.

"Who _does_ speak Latin, then?"

Arthur sighed. "I don't know," he said, exasperated, "I'm not a detective!" Working on extraction jobs, there was always a mark. Always a face and a name to research and stalk and learn his rhythms. Working in reverse was more difficult; there was no named mark to aim for.

"Sorry," he calmed himself and looked at the ceiling, "Are you sure that was what you heard?"

"Yes."

"Uh . . . Latin teachers do, probably. Clergy. It's pretty dead."

"Medical doctors, some scientists, maybe. Linguists," Ariadne added.

"True, but we still don't know where he might be. If this were a corporate revenge he could've been on a private jet hours ago, but –"

"But you don't think a corporate representative would've been an academic?"

Arthur shook his head. "No. Could be a hired man, maybe, but there's still the question of why."

"And how? Jesus, if this is a real person, how has he learned to get into people's dreams remotely?"

Arthur started typing again; abruptly, rapidly.

"What?"

"Maybe," he said, never stopping, "whatever magic this guy's using to get into your head does have a range. It must have limits somehow. And we did suspect him to be American."

 _We should leave? No – to abandon the great mystery for comfort would be of no help._

"We should start looking locally, then."

Arthur fired up a piece of software he held normally reserved for tracking down elusive extraction targets. It was efficient, thorough, and highly illegal. A friend stole it for him from the NSA, and that's all he'd tell Ariadne.

Within another hour they had a short list of names, compiled from the few facts they knew, cross-referenced across social media platforms and other webpages: someone living near the western coast of America, who had some connection to France, had some knowledge of the existence of dream sharing, and had a reason that would lend them a chance in hell of knowing Latin. The only things not included in the referencing were physical appearance and motive. Appearance was likely predictive but unreliable because of people like Eames that could change it, and motive was an unknown.

Eleven names, in all. Eight men, three women. A doctor, a priest, a pair of professors on opposite ends of the coast, a neurologist, a molecular biologist, a self-proclaimed clairvoyant palm-reader, an Air Force administrative officer, and some consults employed by the international companies of Silicon Valley.

This was undoubtedly the strangest game of Clue ever played. ( _The clairvoyant, with the crystal ball, in the home office? The molecular biologist, with the mutated Somnacin formulae, in the laboratory?)_

By this time it was only afternoon, and, with new reason not to waste time between nightfalls, they began their search that day. Beginning with those people situated closest, they ventured up the coast towards the rocky shores of Santa Cruz. Providing the individuals in that vicinity proved innocent and unconnected, they planned to double back, south to the one supposedly in Pasadena, and, if no luck there, reassess the remainder of the "suspects" (Ariadne hated when he called them that) to the far north the next day.

On the road there they picked up more casual clothes. Ariadne was grateful to finally be free of that dress for something more comfortable, and less conspicuous.

When the Santa Cruz name (the molecular biologist) came up clean, they headed back south, but never continued on to Pasadena from the Ragged Point Inn.

At the inn, Ariadne sat on the homey couch of her suite, and stared, lips pursed, in defeat at the webpage for the southern professor of interest's university. Dr. Elsa's personal page described her as a dedicated scholar, coach, and also an activist. Her profile displayed a photograph marking her most recent political victory: _TOBACCO-FREE CAMPUS_ , in bold letters, read the freshly-installed sign under her arm.

"I . . . I don't think it'd be her, Arthur," she showed him the laptop. She should have seen that before, and didn't know whether to be relieved or nervous. Two misses, nine to go. Their field was narrowing, or their list of possibilities shortening, depending on how one looked at it. The sun had long since sunk into the ocean outside.

"Damn. Should've caught that," Arthur said, nodding. A few minutes' of digging confirmed their suspicions. Another round of searches into the listed persons' social media profiles eliminated three more as definite non-smokers: the USAF officer, and two of the collection of Valley consults. Six left to go.

Ariadne hoped they'd have some luck soon; she didn't even want to think about a drive all the way to Seattle.

Together they lounged on the couch. Anything but relaxed, though. A hundred different problems chimed in their ears, wanting to make themselves known. The only respite was when by accident one arm would brush the other, the resulting warmth a reminder each was not in total isolation on this cliff before an endless sea. Sometime around midnight, somewhere between mapping a route to San Francisco and reading up on the history of the Pasiv program, Ariadne fell asleep. She sank slowly, almost against her will, into the corner of the sofa.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Ariadne stumbled through the pale hallway, its edges washed out by fluorescent glare. Her boots squeaked on speckled linoleum, and the odor of bleach was overwhelming. It was on the floor, on the furniture, in the air, in the vents, no open windows . . . Her eyes burned with it. Half-aware, she sidestepped into the wall as a pair of doctors rushed by in the opposite direction, pushing a gurney and drip assembly as fast as they could. She didn't turn to watch them, just walked on forward. She'd been here before.

So she knew: in twenty steps she would reach another hall. She would turn left. The arrows on the floor would guide her to the _Salle d'urgence_ , marked in bold red letters overhead. She wouldn't bother to read them when she passed under, so she wouldn't realize until after that she couldn't have done so. The nurse in the pastel pink scrubs would be waiting, alone in the room when she entered. She would see Ariadne, and rise from her chair. Her crossed arms would fall dead to her sides, revealing not-yet-crusty blood up to the elbows. Her expression would be one of obvious pain, and she would open her mouth and tell Ariadne, slowly and deliberately, that _we're so sorry, but there wasn't enough time; her father had –_ and Ariadne would collapse to her knees and vomit, before the first tears could reach her jaw, right there on the waiting room floor. The nurse would crouch down and hug her anyway.

It all happened in sequence, like it was supposed to, every time Ariadne ended up in this dream _(this nightmare, this memory)_. Except this time, when she got to the ER, the nurse in the pink scrubs didn't stand. She didn't move. Trancelike, she didn't even acknowledge Ariadne was there. Her blonde braids never swayed; her head stayed still and her gaze unwaveringly upon something nonexistent a few meters beyond Ariadne's right shoulder. But, a helpless puppet to her own subconscious, Ariadne walked in anyway, with only the slightest flea of an inkling that something was wrong.

Someone _else_ stood, though. A man with a grey coat, a stranger with his back to her. Right away, she was embarrassed. This . . . wasn't something for anyone else to see. This place was hallowed ground in the worst of ways, raw and personal.

Her conscious mind cried for her attention, and, slowly, her dream body responded. Her cheeks reddened, and she forced her feet to stop their march and backpedal, one after the slothlike other, even though it was as difficult as wading through wet concrete at first. Her awareness was clouded, but she knew enough that something awful, something private was about to happen, and this stranger should not see it.

 _How did she know? How did she remember what had not yet occurred?_ The conscious mind struggled, gasping at the surface of the waves.

The stranger turned round and then, _then_ she remembered. Her hand fell automatically into her pocket to grasp her totem.

No stranger at all. Her monster stared back at her, expecting. He made no effort to bare his teeth, so that she might not have recognized him, save for the familiar coat and the eyes that flashed scarlet if the fluorescents hit them right. The ticking watch – a weighty one, so that he could probably feel its pulse as it felt his. No hat this time.

He took a cautious step to the side, then another, maneuvering around the row of chairs to reach her. He moved slowly, without taking those haunting eyes from her, as if she were a doe he hoped to photograph without frightening off. His expression was one almost of curiosity.

 _Now's my chance._ She would ask him, Ariadne decided, who the hell he was and how he kept wriggling his way into the role of attendee and conductor of her darkest dreams. Yes, sir. She squared her shoulders, and tried to make her pocketed hand look casual.

He was nearly at the threshold, now. Double doors wide open. Only two steps away.

"Who do you think yo—" He closed the distance then. Ariadne would have liked to say it took everything she had not to run down the hall and collapse it behind her, but she froze mid-sentence, verbally and bodily.

Her monster raised a pale finger to his lips, and then extended it, gently, to hers.

She waited until her lungs grew starved and swollen with pain to inhale. He smelled like charcoal and too much potpourri.

A minute later his hand dropped, ragged nail grazing her chin as it went, and his eyes darted to something behind her. The doctors in the hallway were staring, their gurneys creaking to a stop as they paused to observe this abnormality.

This man in the coat was the foreign party, the contaminant here, for once, Ariadne was sure. So she could have let it happen. The projections would have been on him like gulls if she'd let the uncanny tension build a few minutes longer. Or if she called them. But she was curious, unsettled, and she hadn't had her talk with him yet, so she didn't cry out to the concerned-looking doctors when his hand cupped her elbow.

She walked silently with him when he guided – not quite suggested, not quite forced – her out into the hall, and left into the nearest examination room. He closed the door behind them, took a flattened trilby from under his arm, set it on the counter, and folded his hands in front of him.

There was something itching at his thumb; it twitched and circled over the back of his knuckles. Could it have been nerves?

Ariadne would have given anything for a window right about then. Anything not to be in a sterile box with this monster. He wasn't hissing or killing or raging right now, but his skin was the grey of death. And those eyes looked the same. A window would give her something, anything else to look at – and if she were desperate enough, to jump from. She might have tried to render one on the room herself, but given the impracticality it would have taken extra effort, and she could not divert the attention.

He opened his mouth just barely, and Ariadne tensed.

Words came. Words stumbling and slow and careful, but many times clearer than the last time she'd heard him speak.

"Hello, madam." She couldn't believe it, but that was short-lived. "Issh sheekta . . ." His voice was gravelly and low, a half-second out of line like a video that hasn't loaded just right, and when it began to fail he simply stopped and shook his bowed head.

"You – you what?"

He glanced back up at her, clearly surprised by the invitation.

"Ih've beenh cruel, and I vhant—"

"You've been _cruel_? You're damn right! What is this? Why are you here?"

His brow furrowed but he tamed it. Above, the lights flickered. Time was speeding up for this world. The nightmare had overstepped its usual duration.

"I was shfrustrated sand . . . rushed. I only needsh . . ." His control slipped.

"You need . . . what? You want help?"

The ceiling was trembling with the effort it took to hold the dream together, flakes of plaster snowing down on their heads. He gave up talking and simply nodded tersely.

"And . . . if I help, you'll stop bothering me with all this? No threats, no more nightmares?" Ariadne said it before thinking. It was unwise to negotiate with projections, surely, but if this were a real human somewhere, just maybe . . .

Her vision blurred, and her head hurt as she tried to focus. Drawing out the dream unaided by a Pasiv was like holding up a house of cards with one hand.

The monster nodded again and stepped forward, equal parts predatory and hopeful. The water started running in the sink of its own accord, brown and sputtering, and the hall light under the door had disappeared. His back was to those elements. Only Ariadne seemed to notice. Only their cube of a room was left, now, and the dream was growing impatient.

"Fine."

Oblivious to the collapse, he smiled broadly. No teeth, of course – all flesh.

He was on her before she knew it, then. His lips rough upon her cheek, suckling and pushing, his tongue dancing just between them, his nails anchored at the base of her scalp.

It was a brief kiss if a sloppy one. Too short to be want and too haphazard to steer away from jarring. He might have meant a gesture of joy, agreement, gratitude; words without words. Ariadne wouldn't have called it either. Her fist closed and wound up on its own, and she prepared to clock him.

She never got the chance to ask him what it was he'd wanted help with. It was her words that failed then, and, in the moment between shock and indignant rage, the dream came down and the ceiling crushed them both.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

"Umph," Arthur grunted, and grabbed Ariadne's wrist a split-second too late. He'd been sitting on the couch, typing away, Ariadne slumped against his shoulder, when her punch landed squarely on his windpipe out of nowhere. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked around, alert and fuming. He exhaled and pulled her arm away from his throat. She started and yanked her hand from his.

"Are you alright?" he asked, harsher than he meant it. She stalled for a second. Instead of responding, she jumped from the couch and ran to the bathroom. He heard her retching. Arthur stood, but waited in the living area of the suite out of courtesy. When she returned, her face was sallow but her composure reinstated.

She apologized for hitting him, but he barely heard it. Only when she gave a brief, quite obviously edited account of what had happened did he start listening. He ground his teeth but didn't interrupt her until she was finished – or, at least as finished as she was going to be.

They stood, awkwardly, between the loveseat and the coffee table, unsure of how to proceed. They hadn't needed any hurrying along in their mission, but they'd gotten it anyway. Ariadne couldn't wait for morning to come, so they could head north without looking more suspicious than they already did.

No chance of sleeping now, though. _2:37 AM_ , the time on the cable box glowed. Arthur asked what she wanted to do.

"We should call Dr. Miles, now. He'll be awake." Much as she hated to tell him, to drag her _professeur_ , for goodness' sakes, into this, he might have something to say. He was the next best thing to calling Dom. Arthur agreed.

* * *

"Stephen?"

"Just a moment, just a moment," Miles was saying. The video call came through jumpy and lagged, like a series of staggered motions viewed through a dim strobe light. It took a few moments to get up to speed. Arthur hated using the thing (too hackable, he said) but Ariadne wanted so much to see Miles' familiar face. There was no arguing, what with the week she'd been having.

Miles settled the laptop onto a wooden table and tilted the screen. It whirred audibly, and the clink of dishes in the background. Finally, the professor himself sat down at the table, a mug of coffee in his weathered hand.

"Morning, there!" he said, smiling, "I was just having my breakfast here. What's going on with you two? I hope there's not any trouble?" His last question came in a sullen tone, the smile fading upon registering the looks on their exhausted faces.

"There is," Ariadne replied. "I think."

"Is Dom . . . ?" He didn't dare finish.

"No, he's fine. He's with his kids."

"Then . . . ?"

"It's me."

Ariadne began to explain the unexplainable as best she could, pausing in her story to ask questions. _Had this ever happened before? To Dom? Heavens no. Don't know. Did he know of any colleagues, other students involved? No, sorry. What did it all mean? What? Fights with her own projections, projections with memory, people with magic? It should have been impossible it was impossible wasn't it wasn't it more possible she was just going crazy—_

"Ariadne. Ariadne, slow down, dear," Miles said, "This is worse than your Steven Sauvestre presentation."

She took a deep breath. "I'm . . . sorry, Professeur, I just – don't . . . know how . . . to deal with him."

Miles removed his glasses and folded them carefully in his hands. He peered at her over his breakfast.

"Stop running, and stop lashing out at him so, to start. Be more creative. This is the _dreamworld_ we are talking about. Think! You are Ariadne, not Sisyphus."

"Sisyphus?"

"Yes, Sisyphus. You really did drop all those Classics courses to pursue Architecture, didn't you? Fortunately, _I_ did not. Sisyphus is a mythical Greek king, doomed for his wrath to roll a boulder over and over again up a Tartarus mountain slope for all eternity, yet never to reach its top . . . Handling this night terror the way you are will land you on an impossible slope, my dear."

* * *

 **Leave a review down here! 'Til next chapter - Hazel**


	4. Matutinus

**Hi! Below you will find Part Four. As always, I would be overjoyed to get some reviews of any kind, critical or otherwise, because I know this story is kind of strange and I'm curious what people think of it... On that note, I want to thank the awesome Guest(s) who reviewed chapters Inceptus and Expostus last time - thank you for the kind words and for taking the time to read and respond! If you're authors too, Guests, feel free to PM me your user for returns.**

 **I'm sorry I'm posting this chapter so late in the day - school hit me like a freight train ;) this week.**

 **I'm sure you've all figured this out by now, but I want to say it just so you don't get your hopes up this chapter: there will be no English translations provided for any non-English words in this story (with the exception of those that the characters explain to each other, like "meet me at night"). There are two non-English languages used in this story, and both of them are there for a reason and I feel that putting translations with an asterisk at the bottom would take away from the experience of reading. Don't worry; you'll still be able to understand the story without me spelling everything out - but I would encourage you to google the bits you don't understand after if you want to know their meaning.**

 **I do not own Inception, the Ecole d'Architecture, Little League Baseball, the _Cupertino Courier_ , AirBnB, Coudenberg, or the folk song.**

* * *

"Never look backwards or you'll fall down the stairs." – Rudyard Kipling

* * *

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

The Palace of Coudenberg was a sprawling mansion indeed. It was situated on a knoll in Brussels, though it would have towered over the surrounding landscape even without the little hill beneath it. Its walls were stone. They varied between three and six and more stories above ground, an impressive feat considering the date of the palace's construction was just over a thousand years after the time of Christ. The walls had windows, too, and many of them; its stint as a defensive building had been brief. In its most complete form, the Palace of Coudenberg was arranged in a rectangular structure, its wings enclosing a courtyard within, and staring outward over the misty green beyond.

The windows – real glass, the lot of them – lined the second and third stories of the longest wing of the palace, and open air archways lined the first. It was here, along the latter, that Arthur and Ariadne walked. Their shoes fell softly on the corridor, and it was clear though the air smelled of recent rain. The faint shadows of the pillars fell over them at timely intervals as they walked toward the main areas of the palace in the larger wing adjacent. A mural of a trio of ships weathering a gale accented the inner wall to their left. Once in a while, Ariadne would pause and lean out from beneath the archways to admire the architectural handiwork above. The windows and the stone between stood perfectly spaced, like sentinels, supporting a forest of narrow turrets and chimney stacks up on the roof.

She took a deep breath of the dewy air, trying to clear her head. Arthur did the same.

There was no harm in running, she told herself – and they weren't, technically; they were walking. The walking was calming, rhythmic clicks on stone. Arthur pulled open an oiled wooden door. It didn't creak.

They entered the main part of the wing, where the roof came to peaks overhead and little breeze made it through the windows. She wasn't prepared for the luxury inside – polished floors and imported furniture and tapestries of richly dyed threads. The rooms were a little cramped, the ceilings lower than the modern norm because of the time period when they were built. They made up for it, though, in sprawling open layout, one chamber feeding into the next, next, next, and ahead Ariadne knew they would eventually reach the grandest part, where two-story windows soared above the rest of the palace on a corner _chambre_ worthy of a cathedral. They took their time walking, though, as it was so beautiful on the way through. It was the kind of place Ariadne would have loved to visit before, if she'd been able – Belgium wasn't so far from France, and this place was a stunning example of Gothic and Renaissance styles.

But, that was impossible. The Palace of Coudenberg had burned to the ground in 1731.

Arthur held open a second door, this one one of a set leading into the octagonal meeting place of the two wings. The details of the palace filled themselves in as he approached, bringing them into focus. Edges sharpened, wood shone, shadows fell into line. He held a hand out over his rendition, palm up.

"What do you think?" he asked of Ariadne. She smiled, genuinely, and it unwound something that had cramped in her jowls over the past week.

"I think it's just perfect. It's just like – better than – any scholar might have imagined." They had some paintings, some texts and other ornaments to go off of, the architects did, but in the end all their scale models were hollow skeletons of paper and foam. To see it for real – and she used that phrase with the damning knowledge of their true state shoved firmly to the back of her mind – was remarkable. They reached the bottom of a wide, gradual spiral staircase. It reached up into the next several stories and would eventually dump them out in such a position to step out onto the grand balcony between sets of oversized windows.

Arthur leaned on the rail post. "I know it's breaking a few rules, creating a whole, real place, but I figured . . . considering . . . ." His architecture skills were not the best in the world, there was a reason Dom had reached out to Ariadne all those months ago – but with a complete blueprint to work from, it wasn't so hard. Arthur considered this palace fair game for copying because it no longer existed – never had, in their lifetimes – and could never be rebuilt due to the modern cityscape which had overtaken Brussels in its absence. He'd studied it hard over the past few weeks, memorizing wings and windows and guessing at inner chamber layouts. The internet surrendered only so much, and he had to call upon the memory of a visit he'd made once to a tourist spot nearby, and trust his subconscious to do the rest.

So far, it performed beautifully. He'd been in this dreamscape a few times before, to check that it was stable and detailed and fortified, and he'd been waiting for an excuse to show it to Ariadne. The fact that she'd refused to go under in a dream of her own design, or alone, and also the fact that they'd been unable to sleep otherwise, while sad, had provided the opportunity.

She climbed a couple of steps so that they were equal in height.

"It's great." There were a few columns she'd have shifted, a few bits of bannister out-of-period, but for a non-architect it was stellar – and thus far, securely empty; they'd not passed a single projectional soul since their arrival. It was a welcome respite from the real world.

Arthur leaned over to kiss her on the nose. She tilted her head, yielding instead to a kiss on the lips.

They knew the true feel of one another's mouths by now, thanks to that one brief meeting in the Los Angeles _ristorante_ , and their memories wasted no time filling in here. Subconscious inference had to be used for what came next, though: It deepened quickly, deceptively so, like a rising flood. Before they knew it they'd found one another's waists and lost their balances, and were sitting instead of standing on the bottom of the winding staircase.

In limbo only a few days before, Ariadne had pleaded Dom Cobb not to lose himself in the depths of his subconscious. Here and now, she silently begged the opposite of Arthur, and of herself. _Lose yourself here. Lose yourself. Stay in this. Stay stay stay._ With eyes closed and lips open, the dream had transformed into a fireworks show of touch and taste rather than the usual form of visual splendor.

Did the palace still exist around them, when Arthur wasn't watching? Who could tell. He wasn't in any hurry to check, nor did he put any conscious thought into maintaining it. The velvety carpet of the staircase beneath his fingers said yes it was, so he was satisfied. He moved his other hand up to the trim of Ariadne's shirt, but that was where it stopped.

A few minutes later, they parted as the first notes of their warning song rang out over the dreamworld, and eyes opened. Coudenberg was still there. Arthur glanced sidelong at it and shifted so he sat more beside Ariadne than around her.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"No, no. It's just – we ought to stop. La _grande_ mort isn't the only way to wake oneself up accidentally," he said with a smirk. That was true, he knew from experience, but if he were more honest he'd have said he just didn't want to continue in a dream. Wasn't real enough, seemed insincere.

Together they began to climb, as the music soared too slowly through the air.

"Arthur, do you think we could just . . . walk a while longer?"

He nodded and altered the staircase so subtly and skillfully it couldn't be seen. When by his own estimate they had about five minutes remaining before the Pasiv would call them back to the Ragged Point Inn in California, he changed it back and guided them to an exit corridor. Suddenly they were on level cherry flooring, impossibly only three stories above where they'd begun. They made it out onto the palace balcony in time to watch full dawn break over the horizon.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Back to work. The Pasiv was today their alarm clock, and when it shut off the flow of sedative they were up and preparing for a full day of hunting. Arthur reveled in the search, but Ariadne hoped it wouldn't take long. The morning queasiness was becoming almost unbearable.

This time they were packed and out the door before breakfast, not wanting to risk being seen again alongside the morning newscast on the dining area television. They were both lucky and unlucky, Arthur thought, that few details were known about the presumed robbery at their LA hotel: lucky, because the vagueness would keep them off the Wanted lists, and unlucky because everyone loves a good mystery story, so the news would likely continue to run it for days. He guessed – and hoped – it would stay relatively local. Today they were heading even further from the source.

San Francisco was their destination – or, first, the smaller city of Cupertino to the south. One of their six remaining names was said to reside there. They picked up a few essentials, and then began the long drive on the highway. Ariadne at the wheel this time, they wove their way north on the cliff-side road like an ant upon a cinderblock.

* * *

Rev. Donovan Grisham, 36, no criminal history and no discernable motive. He was a former scholar of Regent University, yearlong monastery resident, and one-time student missionary to the slums of Paris via service in an orphanage there. Now he spent his days at Glory Above Church, his flock composed of the devoted parishioners at one edge of Cupertino. A model citizen if there ever was one. But, in this game of late, no one was off limits as a suspect.

Arthur reviewed his notes, and routed their GPS to the address he'd written down. They slowed as they approached the church parking lot.

"So, do we have a plan here?" Ariadne asked. With the individual they'd checked up on the day before (the molecular biologist in Santa Cruz), his innocence had been apparent at once – he'd been in Australia for the better part of the year, and two family members confirmed it, separately. Here she sensed it wouldn't be so obvious. She could already see Grisham's car in the lot, he was here, and their list of known friends in the area they could talk to was not lengthy. They'd have to go in directly.

"Watch and learn," Arthur responded as they parked. Ariadne was miffed.

"I'd rather you just tell me the plan first, if you've got one," she said. Arthur unbuckled his seatbelt.

"No, that is the plan." He opened his door. "We watch him, and learn what we can. If we can't rule him out from that we'll go try and talk to him after." He stepped out and shut it behind him.

In his usual three-piece-suit, Arthur looked only a little out of place amongst the small crowd flowing through the front doors. They chose a pew in the back, between an elderly couple and a man who couldn't stop readjusting his bowtie. Arthur hoped from their vantage point to see their mark before he saw them.

Sit, stand, kneel, sit. He went through the motions like a professional, all the time keeping a watchful eye upon those around him. Tried to tune them out verbally, though, so he might listen to Ariadne's voice alone in the songs.

It was a small enough building, slightly trapezoidal in shape. Even from the back they had a clear view of the proceedings on the dais. There a quartet and a small choir took turns leading in hymns, and a few speakers stood waiting for their turn at the pulpit. A musk of fake flowers and incense rolled lazily through the air in ribbons.

When Reverend Grisham, introduced by an altar boy, stepped up to the open book on the lectern, Ariadne knew immediately it wasn't him. It just wasn't. He was tall, probably husky beneath the robes, with a round chin and dimpled, bearded cheeks. He turned pages slowly, a tremor in his wrist. In the clear baritone that seems to be reserved for preachers and people who play them in movies, he implored the congregation to open their Holman Christian's for the sermon.

"Today we will begin our reading together with Ecclesiastes 1." A collective ruffle of criminally thin pages as everyone found Ecclesiastes 1. Grisham began to quote from the passage, and the congregation responded in turn. Ariadne leaned over and whispered to Arthur, much to the chagrin of the couple to their left.

"It's not our guy."

"How do you know? It's not in the looks – people can change them in the dreamworld if they want, like Eames."

"I know, I know. It's not that, it's just . . . not him. He moves differently. Ugh. I don't know. We can talk to him if you want."

They stayed on for the sermon for the sake of normalcy, heads bowed to hide their faces from the others, and waited after for even their pious neighbors to clear out. The pair then rose and made their way to the dais. This was their chance to learn about him more closely.

They crept around the side, into the offices and confessional rooms. They slipped through the private space unseen for a while – finding no evidence against the pastor's innocence – until they ran right into Reverend Grisham in the narrow hall behind the dais. Ariadne stumbled.

"Father?"

He looked up from the linen he was folding. Arthur watched his face carefully for any indications that he'd met them before. There weren't any. He blinked at them through thick half-rim spectacles. His movements betrayed no nerves or hostility.

After a moment's wait, "Yes?" He smiled, and Ariadne found it warm. She thought quickly of something to say.

"My, uh, brother and I. We're traveling this week. I was hoping we could have a blessing from you?"

"Of course. The Lord always watches over those on journeys. Might I ask where you're going?"

In Ariadne's second of hesitation, Arthur responded. "Pennsylvania," he said. "For the Little League World Series." He stood half a step behind her, hands folded.

"Ah. Far. Well enjoy, then," Grisham said. He gave a brief blessing, during which Arthur finally conceded to Ariadne with a shake of his head. _Not him._ When Grisham was finished, he opened his eyes and said more softly, "Glad to see you little lost sheep are safe. Is there anything else?"

Ariadne said, "No, thank you, I don't think – wait, what do you mean?" He recognized them. For a second her heart clinched. If this _was_ their guy? They were alone now. He might be armed. Arthur scanned the hall.

"You were in the paper this morning."

 _The papers. Damn._ They hadn't counted on that. Ariadne slumped a little. That their faces were this far north in the papers was no good, and even more disappointing that they were no closer to the true identity of her monster.

It took some gentle arguing, but they did get him to not worry about them being in the paper. Even if they claimed she wasn't in danger, it was his duty, he'd said, to report to the authorities the truth. Arthur responded, almost hypnotically, that so far as he knew, the truth was that they'd run off east to watch the Little League World Series. Grisham had looked at the floor, fingered his wedding ring, and told Arthur, "That's right," with a weary smile. Minutes later they were out the door with another name crossed off and their own copy of the _Cupertino Courier._

Back in the car, Arthur scanned the _Courier_ headlines in the small section dedicated to crime. He was relieved to see their false names were still in use. Crime was no rarity, but he suspected the unknowns of their case had drawn interest, coupled, sadly, with the fact that it was perceived to be so high-profile. Next time, he thought, they wouldn't pick such a damn nice hotel.

"This could work to our advantage," Ariadne was saying, mostly to herself. Being recognized created risk, but they might just avoid detection with the word of someone who, literally with God as his witness, attested to authorities that to his knowledge the missing persons were en route to Pennsylvania. Even the disorder created by a few hours or days of a wild goose chase in New England might buy them enough time to find out who had gotten into Ariadne's head. Apprehend him, too, hopefully before the LAPD caught up with them.

Arthur drummed his fingers on the dash. The sun was high overhead, it being afternoon by now on a summer day.

"On to the next one, then?" Ariadne said tiredly. Looking at their notes, there were five names left on their list. One more in the area of San Francisco, and the rest hours further to the north.

"Probably time for at least one more today," said Arthur. He programmed the GPS while Ariadne put the car in gear. They sped out of the near-empty lot.

It was late afternoon by the time downtown San Francisco appeared on the horizon. The city itself was packed between the fog-laden mountains and the water. It was situated on the lowlands, so that from certain angles it looked like it was actually floating on the bay. The road they took arced around it, out of town and into the industrial areas inland. It was quieter out this way; there were few cars and the buildings were well distanced from one another, unlike in the busy city. Ariadne pushed the car past 130 kph on straightaways. The engine whined, then roared to keep pace.

"Something wrong?" Arthur said from the passenger seat. Ariadne took her foot off the gas.

"No, I'm okay. It's just – what are we even doing? Driving all over the American coast, looking for someone we don't even know exists . . . You're wanted . . . Why are you helping me with this?"

"Ariadne, he spoke a language you don't. And I saw him fight us at the elevators – an untrained person, violent and thinking to wear a vest? That's not normal."

"But why–"

She turned to meet Arthur's eyes for a moment, cut off when he set a hand on her forearm. She found his face smooth, almost incredulous, brow pinched slightly beneath his slicked hair.

 _Say it_ , he thought.

". . . Because this can't go unchecked. This could affect all of us if someone's out there to torment people in our line of work," he said instead.

"Oh," said Ariadne softly, glancing between him and the road.

Her eyes showed disappointment, so Arthur continued, "We'll get to the bottom of this, don't worry."

"Yeah," she agreed. She refocused on the road. There were a few seconds of quiet before she posed another question.

"Arthur?"

"Yes?" Still with his hand on her arm, gently massaging her wrist draped over the gearshift.

"Do you think it's worth it, to do all this to try and protect . . . our line of work? What if this is just something that happens to us? First Cobb, the ops guys, then me."

"No, I think it's different this time. Unless you secretly have a snake-man husband in your past – not judging – that would be haunting you, I think it's different."

Ariadne laughed.

"And I think," Arthur continued, "that if you love something, you should protect it . . . You do love it, don't you?"

Ariadne did love the dreamworld. Loved it with everything – it was free, it was creation, it was a challenge, it was hers and anyone's she chose to share it with. And it should be safe, too, but for this poison that had seeped in over the past days.

"Yes. Do you? You just seem to think of it as . . . just a job, sometimes."

Arthur smirked. "It is but not really. Pays well, too. But besides the obvious benefits, I'm not blind to what a rare situation we've got. When most people go into work, they sell their time. When I go into the dreamworld, I get to buy it back."

They spent the rest of the ride coming up with a new story to use should their next person of interest ask the reason for their visit. They stopped once to purchase a change of clothes. The sloping highlands, covered mostly in pines, stretched on with sometimes miles in between buildings. A luxury home here, gargantuan tech headquarters there. Finally, the sleek little car turned off the main road onto a narrow, winding drive. The drive had been paved relatively recently, Arthur could tell; gravel was still scattered alongside it and the air still smelled of cut trees. They slowed and took the turns gently. Just when it seemed the forest would engulf them, they rounded a bend and came upon a squat gray building.

It was a plain structure, rectangular with modern glass doors and a few windows in the front, and ventilation stacks poking up from the roof towards the back. It was only three stories in height. Beside the front entryway was a single scraggly redwood tree, which towered another full story above the building. A garden of white poppies covered the grounds around it. The parking lot wasn't more than a quarter full, at this hour.

Ariadne parked next to the ugliest fuchsia sedan she'd ever seen, and pulled the key from the ignition. A moment to breathe. Arthur got out his notebook.

"So this one's the lab, right?" he said.

She said, "Yeah, should be. The neurologist?"

"Yep. That one – that went fishing off of Olèron last summer. Simonsen. It's a long shot, him being in on a weekend, but we've got to check it out."

This building before them, like many places of business and research, was home to a small cluster of laboratories and office spaces. Corporate researchers and some lucky academics would rent facilities within the complex to carry out their work. This one, according to its website, was home to a number of labs, most focused on genetics, neurology, or another field in medicine. Arthur and Ariadne left the car and walked in the main entrance, dressed in t-shirts blue and gold. The doors parted automatically.

The lobby was dominated by a huge half-moon receiving desk. Behind it, there were a few doors, each leading to a different section of the building. Black granite floors and pastel blue walls. Stairs and an elevator were located in the back left, and a group of businessmen clustered in the corner, awaiting a meeting. The one person at the front desk didn't look up, no bell sounded when they entered. Arthur cleared his throat.

"Yeah?" the receptionist glanced up, moving only his eyes. His chin rested on one hand. Ariadne stepped forward, prepared this time, and, using the story they'd crafted, explained who they wanted to see. He cast a disdainful look at her top and shrugged.

"The docs usually like if you call ahead, you know, but it's been a slow day. I'll see what I can do." He rose from his wheeled chair and disappeared through the centermost door behind him. For an instant they saw the bland, narrow hall beyond. Then for a few minutes Arthur and Ariadne were left alone in the lobby.

Arthur peered over a clipboard on the front desk. It wasn't long before he spotted their man on the staff roster.

 _Aergia, Jeremy_

 _Groves, Edward S._

 _Langley, Meredith_

 _Levesque, Icarus L._

 _Machado, Julio F._

 _. . ._

 _. . ._

 _Simonsen, Tam G._

There. They were in the right place.

The secretary returned and dropped back into his chair. "Dr. Simonsen's out through next week. Sorry."

Too long to wait. Better talk to someone else, try and learn more about him.

Ariadne breathed deeply. "Okay, um, our report is due _this_ week, though. Are any of his colleagues available?"

Slowly, huffing as if gravity had tripled in magnitude, the man again stood and went briefly into the hall.

"If it's that urgent you can ask Dr. Levesque, he's got his own lab over there, in the right wing," he drawled when he returned. "He's in, and he'll see you, but they're closing up shop soon." His eyes moved to the wall clock.

 _Better than nothing._

Ariadne said, "Thanks, mister . . ."

"Jeremy."

"Jeremy. Slow day, huh? You seem a little underwhelmed here."

He shrugged again. "I'm supposed to be in a biotech shadow program, but this intern crap is all they have me do. Would've been better to try and get a lab gig back on campus. The hell if I even know what's going on here, they never tell me anything."

The door behind him swung open again, and a woman appeared. Jeremy stopped talking abruptly.

"I'll be with you in a moment, ma'am," she addressed Ariadne. Her voice was tight, her stride long and bouncing. She made her way to the far end of the desk, to a secondary computer console.

She was a scientist by the look of her. Not Dr. Levesque, but someone familiar with the practices of a lab. She wore a bleached lab coat and baby blue gloves, and her frizzy red hair contained up in a ponytail. Goggles hung at her collar in place of a necklace. Dense freckles didn't completely hide the dark circles under her eyes.

 _Snap –_ the blue nitrile gloves came off, and her fingers were at the keyboard. And Arthur and Ariadne couldn't help but stare.

The woman wasn't a particularly fast typist or anything, maybe slightly above average; what drew their attention were the scars that covered her hands. Milk-white and raised, long and overlapping in no particular pattern, from the fingertips up to where the wrist disappeared into her sleeve. They ran like creeper vines over smooth, pink rubber tree limbs.

She might have noticed – her lips pressed together just so – but she never lifted her eyes from the screen while she worked. Still, Ariadne was embarrassed. She looked away. Arthur turned his focus to a pen on the counter. They waited in the pitter-pat silence.

After a few moments, the woman called to Jeremy.

"Hey," she waved him over, "Could you reset this boot program? . . . Yes, yes, that icon there. I think the passcodes . . ."

For a moment, the secretary took her place at the standing desk before the monitor. The scientist turned to their visitors. As she spoke to them a translucent glass door on the right side of the lobby unlocked with a _hiss_ , and Jeremy scooted back to his own station.

"Sorry about that. I'm Cierra. I work under Dr. Levesque. What would you like to see him for?" She came out and stood between them and the unlocked door, smiling politely.

Arthur exchanged a glance with Ariadne.

"My lab partner and I are graduate students at Berkeley, and we'd like to ask Dr. Levesque a few questions about his research. What kind of work do you do?"

She answered without hesitation. "I'm a student of computer science, actually. The human brain is a lot more like a computer than you might think, and analyzing and reverse-engineering that side of it is thought to be one of the most promising ways to figure out how to fight disease."

Behind her, a shadowy silhouette appeared behind frosted glass. The muffled beep of a keycard.

After another hiss and a beat, the door opened partway and the man within emerged to fill the gap.

"Good day. You are our visitors?" His voice was friendly and tinged with an accent he hadn't quite buried. Ariadne paled. _Impossible_.

Arthur answered. "Yes. Dr. Levesque?"

He waved it off. "Icarus, or Ike, please – I never did care much for phonetics. Come along inside." He opened the door wider to allow them through. "We are always glad for the interest of students, you know. What is it that you study?" His eyes lingered on Ariadne a moment.

She sensed his stare but plunged ahead with their lie anyway, once shock released its grip on her tongue. "We're biologists – med track, you know? – from UC Berkeley. Um, our lab staff leader sent us to interview Dr. Simonsen about his experiments, but if it's alright we'd like to talk to you too. Do you think we could have a look around?"

". . . Certainly. I'll give you the grand tour." He stepped through the door – the first of a pair, they saw now – and looked over his shoulder to flash her a smile.

They stepped through after him, and found themselves in a sort of airlock, the other sealed door ahead of them still. Dr. Levesque busied himself with the second keypad, giving Ariadne a chance to send a panicked look to Arthur. _Him?!_ Arthur nodded slowly but remained skeptical. He'd been in the dream with Ariadne's monster for mere moments, so his judgement might not be the best, but the bone structure was awfully, awfully similar. Very similar. The gait, too. But, what were the odds . . . ?

The keypad buzzed loudly and a spark popped from it, and Levesque slapped it with the heel of his hand. "Damn thing . . . shorts out at the slightest disturbance, I swear . . ." he muttered. He jiggled the shell and re-entered his code.

The second door opened and they entered the lab. Dr. Levesque leading, Cierra last. The doors stayed open behind them, sounds of the receptionist's computer game leaking in from the lobby.

Compared to the few laboratories Arthur had seen before, it was large, but still crowded, always looking as if it needed a larger space to expand into as these places do. Nearest, there were two long lab benches that began close to the door and extended towards the far end of the room. In the corner, a cloaked MRI machine that nearly touched the ceiling. He scanned the bookshelves above the benches for volumes on Latin, France, dreams, anything. Nada. Every surface on the lab benches was coated with supplies – most of them with flasks, Bunsen burners, stacks of paper, or various instruments of measurement. None resembled a Pasiv. On the end of the leftmost bench sat a cage of white mice. Dr. Levesque stopped to observe them. One climbed into its hamster wheel and began to run furiously when he bent down to the bars.

He straightened all at once. "You'll have to forgive the mess," he said to his guests. "We're in the middle of quite a few long projects at the moment."

Arthur assured him the facilities back at their university were not unaccustomed to the organized chaos of research. Especially in this time of year, with the summer term winding to an end.

They traversed the room, walking up and down the benches, squeezing past the hulking MRI, all the time Levesque's cool voice narrating what this or that was used for, the mice's squeaking filling his pauses. They even stopped briefly outside Dr. Simonsen's lab in the other wing, and found it looked quite similar.

Levesque's background was in radiology, Arthur and Ariadne learned, and he'd only recently turned to medical research as a field of application for new devices. He and Cierra were currently working on developing a patch and app system to treat Alzheimer's, he said, though he really wanted to get into working with nanobots if he had the chance. He perused all the big Silicon Valley publications religiously, Cierra confirmed, earning an embarrassed chuckle from him.

"So, that's about all," he said, and by this time they'd circled back around to the door. Dr. Levesque called himself back from deep thought and looked directly at them for the first time since they'd entered. Brown eyes, russet at best under the lights. "Did you learn anything useful for your . . . what was it?"

"Term paper, yes."

"Ah," he smiled. "A Term Paper. A-T-P. Either sustains you or drains you, doesn't it?" He snorted as if he'd made a hilarious joke.

Ariadne and Arthur looked at each other blankly.

Levesque's smile dropped and Cierra seemed to gauge their reaction. "Are you sure there's nothing else?" the doctor said lowly. "I could certainly stay after hours . . . If you need something, I truly insist . . ." The desk attendant outside was already packing up, zipping his bag now, standing, ready to be out the door within moments of five o'clock. The businessmen were leaving too.

Ariadne sighed. She looked around the lab once more. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing damning, nothing proving either Dr. Simonsen or his colleague here was her monster. She heard Arthur's lecture from that morning over again in her mind, so clear he might have re-spoken it: _we can't nab him until we're sure._ Without a tie, to give themselves away to someone other than her monster would both make them look insane, and get them in trouble with the law as outed illegal Pasiv users. So no matter how much her gut prickled in this building, she had to bite her tongue now.

"No, thank you."

"Very well. Do feel free to come back should you think of something."

Arthur and Ariadne thanked him and left on the tail of the receptionist. Levesque watched them go through the glass. Only when they were back in the car with the doors locked, backing out, heading onto the winding drive, did they talk.

"What do you think?" Arthur asked. He trusted instinct above all.

"I don't know. I don't think it's Simonsen, but Levesque . . . I just have a weird feeling. I don't want to go back but I think we should."

Arthur nodded quietly, and signaled his turn out onto the main road for the empty woods to see. No good realizing some detail when they were halfway to Portland.

"I agree. We'll be low on time if Grisham leaks anything on us, not that he knows much. But tomorrow. Eames sent me an email, and I want to read it tonight before we do anything more."

"Where are we going tonight?" Ariadne doubted if it were safe to book another hotel, now that half the state thought Arthur was a burglar that frequented them, but the car was too cramped to conceive of staying in it, either.

"We're going couch-surfing."

"You think that's safe?"

"There's a new startup out of San Francisco regulating it now; the city will be a hub of theirs. And it's easier to keep one person quiet than a hotel-full."

" _Keep them quiet?_ So we're gonna, like, kidnap someone?"

"No, no – just make sure they stay either in the house or away from us. We'll be at their home, so, technically, we won't be abducting them."

"I can't believe this."

"You'd rather get caught?"

San Francisco came out on the horizon, sudden and towering and twinkling in the dying light. Once they were across the bridge and into town, they stopped at a Starbucks to book Airbnb accommodations electronically. Ariadne drank her coffee through a straw.

Arthur checked his email:

 _Greetings.  
I imagine you haven't made much progress without my help, so I think you'll appreciate this: Yusuf wouldn't stop worrying about you two, and I was so sick of it I took the liberty of running your description of Ariadne's symptoms past one of my sources. She's not the first. Four of the early test subjects in the USAF Pasiv initiative were committed, but you knew about that. I'm talking about others. Outside the Pasiv program. Public. My source dug up two articles – six months apart – that both detail the same symptoms. See __**this link**_ _and_ _ **this link**_ _._

Arthur did. The first was on a physician in Nevada, who had been admired in his field until one day he decided he couldn't stomach picking up a needle anymore and started hiding in broom closets, convinced he was being stalked. Law enforcement swept his property but found no one, and nothing missing but a couple file folders of data charts. He was still receiving treatment. The second was a Malorium Grant finalist, who was dropped from the competition because the week before review he drove his car through a storefront, injuring six and destroying his grant-prospective invention in the process anyway. The pair's early reactions, though, were the same: insomnia, shakes, nausea, paranoia, cause unknown.

 _Coincidence? I do love to gamble, but I wouldn't bet on it._

 _No news on Yusuf's late classmate. Shame. Back to my holiday, then, I've done enough for you. Can't be holding your hand through everything. Maybe bring Ariadne out here a while if your current efforts are unsuccessful; I've become convinced there's nothing sand and martinis cannot remedy. Good luck._

 _Cheers,_

 _Eames_

Some time later, they were creeping up a sharp hill when the car's navigation system announced they had arrived at their destination. They came to a halt in front of a peach Italianate row house, one of a dozen or more packed like books on a shelf into the steep block. Ariadne peered up at it. It had two bay windows, one atop the other, concrete steps spilling out from the front porch, and a garage door half buried in the sidewalk terrace. It was all wood, one of a precious few in this area like that remaining, she knew from school. She wondered if Arthur had thought of that when choosing it. Every window and door was framed with elaborately carved trim, right up to the flat roof. A set of wind chimes hung over the porch rail.

Upon closer inspection they appeared to be found-art wind chimes, she noted, as they were made of four rusted drain pipes and a handful of bottle caps. Arthur ducked to avoid them as he rang the bell.

The door swung open, and the unmistakable smells of cannabis and oil hit them in a single wave. As for the man that answered the door, it was difficult to tell which had come earlier: his last shower or his last meal. Even barefoot he was taller than Arthur, lanky, with blond dreads to his shoulders and a bronze to his skin that might have been from sun or dirt.

"Yello," he said, a slow smile coming. He asked their false names, and they nodded, confirming. "Awe _some_. I'm Floyd then. C'mon inside, you golden bear – and bear-ette. Must be freezing." The faded thermometer nailed to the doorframe showed 62 F, but did not account for the wind.

He'd inherited the place from his aunt, he said. Apparently not the furniture, though, Arthur thought; on their trek to the third floor they passed only two small tables, and there were more woven floor mats than chairs in the place. No televisions. Good. Floyd guided them to the suite they'd rented and held open the door. Ariadne held her breath as they entered, and released it as Arthur released their luggage onto the bed. _Slosh._ Ugh. A water bed. Floyd turned on the lamps and caught the silver glint of the Pasiv.

"Dude, sweet case. What is that?"

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Nothing you need to be concerned with."

"I'm not concerned, man. Totally chill. I was just, like, 'what is it?'"

"I was under the impression we rented a room, not a nanny."

Floyd threw up his hands, fingers splayed, eyes on the floor, and walked away with a shrug.

 _Close one._ "Cold," Ariadne said playfully. More serious, "You don't think he'll go to the police?"

Arthur stopped midway through unzipping their suitcase.

"Ariadne," he said dully, voice low, "He doesn't need the police here any more than we do. He's got enough pot in this house to sedate a grizzly bear, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's not all he's on." He paused. "Even if he were observant enough to identify us and stupid enough to go to the police, they'd never take him seriously."

Floyd reappeared then, at the edge of the doorway, but made no indication he'd heard them. Leaning into the room, he held one generously-ringed finger up in the air.

"I forgotta tell you," he said, "But if you want'some, uh, basil from the rooftop garden, that's totally cool. Make yourselves at home. Just be careful, though – las week I was sittin' up there and I saw a real honest-to-God UFO. Bastards almost got me again. Anyway, later bro." With that, he vanished to the ground floor.

Arthur raised his eyebrows pointedly to Ariadne. _See, told you._

Host-wise, they'd won the lottery.

A while later Arthur turned off the lamps and crossed the room by memory. Ariadne felt the mattress sink as he climbed onto the other side, heard the soft click as he set his gun on the nightstand, within easy reach. After that he laid very still, arms at his sides. Ariadne was unsure of what to do. They weren't unaccustomed to sharing a bed by now, what with work and the events of this week, but still. She swallowed. And what about Coudenberg? Did that count for them, or was it something to stay in dreams and melt away by morning like fog? She should say something of it.

"Do you think we found him today?" she whispered instead. A ruffle of sheets.

Arthur replied, "Honestly, I don't know. He seemed normal, lab seemed normal, but I think there's more to it. You'd know better than me." His breath was warm on her cheek. Her cheeks were warm.

 _Focus. You'd know better._ Did he seem normal? He did.

"Why do you think he looks like that in dreams, then? Like a monster?" No one would do that intentionally, not even Eames.

". . . Sometimes, in dreams, I think what we see of unfamiliar people through projections is not so much their physical appearance but their character. The brain can't create entirely new faces, so it takes what it has and stitches it together."

Ariadne went to sleep thinking of the patchwork quilt spread over them.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

A trio of young voices faded in with the sky.

" _J'ai descendu dans mon jardin_ _  
_ _J'ai descendu dans mon jardin_ _  
_ _Pour y cueillir du romarin."_

Ariadne's head snapped up. She looked around. A group of children on the quad, bundled in scarves, gathering fistfuls of grass as they sang along with their au pair halfheartedly. Something on her shoulders, a weight – a backpack. In her hands was a smooth mailing tube.

" _Qu'un rossignol vint sur ma main_ _  
_ _Qu'un rossignol vint sur ma main_ _  
_ _Il me dit trois mots en latin."_

Bells sounded now, full and resolute, drowning out the rest of the children's song. Something. They meant something. Ariadne looked up at the bell tower. She was supposed to do something. What? What what what was it? But before she could worry, just like that her feet carried her to a lecture hall and her arms surrendered the tube at the door. She sat.

She reached into her backpack, fishing for a pen because that seemed like the thing to do, but came out with something cold. Her hand opened to let the lights touch her bishop. The lights . . . _lumière_ _?_. . . no,  
 _léger –_ _light_. Light. She turned the bishop over between her fingers. It was much too light, as if it were made of plastic.

 _Oh._

Ariadne stood and left the hall before class could begin. In a room of near three hundred, no one noticed. She arrived again on the narrow brick path that crossed the quad. _It was a dream_. Only a dream, must have been. Somewhere, she knew, she was still under a quilt next to Arthur in an Italianate row house. She took in the world to try and make sense of the dream. A few trees had changed places since she'd been out here last, and refused to cooperate when she tried to put them back the way they'd been only a few minutes before. They were untouchable to her. She squinted but didn't test her power further.

It was colder here than it should have been. There was no frost on the quad green, but the first winter winds had begun to pluck leaves one by one from the wayward trees' limbs. She reached out to her body for warmth, gently, so as not to wake herself, but found she could not feel it. Odd. A man was seated on a bench not far down the path, and she approached him.

"Hey." She poked his shoulder. He didn't turn.

"Hey! Where am I?" she said, throwing her arm out over the dreamworld. It was a university, doubtless, but not hers, not the Ecole d'Architecture. The man sunk deeper into his upturned collar and continued to drink from his thermos. She sighed and a cloud appeared, and so she walked on to the nearest brick building and let herself in. She found herself in the common room of a dormitory, a bright fire burning in the hearth and a half circle of wingback chairs situated around a coffee table before it.

Particles of ash stung Ariadne's eyes, invisible, from the air. She tilted her chin first to the fire and willed it to go out. With her mind she pushed at its edges. They resisted and stretched like plastic film. _Push. PUSH. Snap._ There, the barrier gave; she was through. Slowly, with some mental wrestling, the fire obeyed and fluttered down to a soft glow.

Feeling a little better despite the cold, Ariadne turned her attention to the rest of the room. A few of the projection-students studying there looked up, but none moved from their tables to address her or the hearth. They paged through their materials frantically in these last hours before some exam. She knew the feeling.

All the wingback chairs were empty but well-worn; the one across from her had a defined sunken middle, where someone had clearly sat daily for years. Maybe the same someone. A strange thought, maybe not hers.

Pencils whispered, furniture creaked, toes tapped. Ariadne settled into the nearest chair before the dead fireplace. What to do? The landscape didn't listen, her projections wouldn't speak to her, but she didn't feel ready to try to wake yet. She let the hum of the room envelop her. Maybe . . . maybe she was just tired. She'd barely slept this week and her mind was strained, no wonder tonight's dream was out of order. She hoped she wasn't . . . succumbing to whatever had happened to those men in Eames' email.

Her eyes went to the fireplace. Maybe she could feel better by doing what she did best. She focused on the bricks, white bricks, rounded and chalky, and tried to turn them a proper red. The mantle trembled and a bit of dust sprinkled down, but in the end the chalky bricks stared back. Her grip tightened on the wingback's arms under the shuffle of half a dozen textbook pages.

The rhythm of the room was disrupted. A creak as someone sank into the opposite chair. His head was tucked in the dim cold, but he only sat a moment to put his hat and notebook on an end table before rising again. Two steps to the fireplace, he grabbed a poker and bent to survey the charred logs. He bent perfectly at the waist as if a practiced gymnast. His chin came up then, and Ariadne froze. His sleeve came up, too, in case there was any doubt, when her monster stoked the embers. Only one prod and they were alight again.

Dr. Levesque resettled into his chair without acknowledging Ariadne. He checked the time. Smooth, spidery hands opened his notebook.

Or maybe he was not _Doctor_ Levesque yet, she thought. It was him for sure, but here he looked so young, with no creases or grays. Like one of the students. He looked down again, and his pen began to glide over the page. Equations flowed out at a feverish pace. A world away in the lull of the dormitory, Ariadne gave a warm smile, curious for this glimpse of the scientist's youth, however falsified. _The subconscious does_ such _strange things!_ she mused.

The rhythm continued now, like clockwork. Rolling writing, ruffling pages, the creaky chairs. Ariadne sat, loathe to disrupt a dream so smooth-flowing for a change. Any sense of time or intent left her.

Wait a minute. Like _clockwork. Clockwork tick tock tick tick tock work._ Under Levesque's pewter cuff, in the newly-rekindled firelight, flashed a Weiss. Ariadne's heart thudded much faster than its ticking. The brass studs on the chair arms bruised her fingertips when she squeezed.

 _Had she seen it? Was it real?_ Was her mind but showing her inaccurate details to trip her up? _Think!_ Yes, yes; she'd seen it when he pointed to a poster high on the laboratory wall.

"Ike . . . Is it you?" she breathed. He looked up and cocked his head. In some disturbing medley of realities, his face was human but tinted with the piercing gaze of her monster.

" _Dīc iterum_ _?_ –Répétez?"

The air between them suddenly grew cold, irreverent of the hearth. Those couple meters stretched for miles. Ariadne stayed silent.

Levesque squinted and looked around at the other students, who had not taken notice. He checked the time.

Run, or stay? Ariadne felt no draw this time, no bonds, no force keeping her prisoner to his plans. She chose run.

It burned her lungs to run in this bitter air, but she ran until she finally puffed up to the campus bell tower, wherever it was. She looked back. She hadn't been followed. For the rest of the dream she circled up the winding stairs of the bell tower, and woke naturally before she had need to jump.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

* * *

 **That chapter was 8,500 words so you're probably almost as tired as I am so I'll make this post-A/N brief:**

 **Review!** **Please and thanks,**

 **\- Hazel**


	5. Tenebris

**Hello! Here is the next installment, #5. Tenebris.**

 **I do not own Inception, the Ecole d'Architecture, Stanford University, the text of _Lucid Dreaming_ , the dissertation work of Keith Hearne or of Stephen LaBerge, or AmScope. **

**I _do_ own my OCs, and Floyd might be my favorite character I've ever written. **

* * *

"I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams." – Jonas Salk

* * *

When Arthur woke, Ariadne was gone and the sheets were already cold. The door was open, allowing in smells that promised breakfast. The soft twang of a lute swelled up through the floor.

For a few moments Arthur regarded only the ceiling. His neck was stiff; northern California nights were cooler than those of Los Angeles. Not as cold as those of New York he'd known as a teenager, but it had been a while. Carefully he ran through the events of the previous day once more. Next, he reviewed his dreams. He could only remember two, and in the one he recalled most clearly he was trying to sell baked goods to a couple of poodles on the Thames. Not terribly logical of him. He hoped he wasn't sick or something.

Arthur stretched and made to swing his legs out of bed, but pulled back when they almost kicked Ariadne. She was seated on the floor next to the bed, typing away on his laptop.

For a moment he wondered how she'd guessed the password, but brushed it aside.

"Morning," he said, peeking over her shoulder. To his dismay, she'd called up a campus map of the Ecole d'Architecture and was simultaneously navigating the place's information page. He froze, half emerged from the covers.

"Are you . . . thinking of going back?"

Ariadne turned and looked back up at him. Her hair smelled like oatmeal soap. It was still early, but she'd already showered and dressed.

"No," she said, "Just thinking. Something happened last night, and I think – I think it was different and I don't know how to explain it."

"What happened?" Arthur asked. She looked both excited and worried.

"It's gonna sound crazy . . ."

"We rob people's subconsciouses for a living."

"Um, I think _I_ walked in _his_ dream."

"What? The guy– the monster's?"

"I didn't _mean_ to, it's just – I was sitting there at a university, and he came in, but it wasn't all him, you know? He sort of looked like, like the monster, but also like that Dr. Levesque. And he was so calm, so sure of himself and sure of the world, while I was lost and couldn't control anything . . . I think _he_ was the one dreaming." _I think he was the one dreaming. I think the monster was the one. Dr. Levesque was the one dreaming. Dr. Levesque is the one._

Arthur sat up further. Ariadne went on to explain the similarities in appearance, the quad she couldn't locate at any college she'd ever been to, the willingness of the dream to bend easily to the commands of Levesque and not her.

And, most telling, the fact that her totem had been out of balance.

Only at this last fact did Arthur grow concerned. The rest could, however improbably, be generated by a paranoid subconscious desperate to put a face to her monster. But that, that should never happen by design within her own head. Adrenaline surged with the possibility that they'd really caught their man. He tried to circle back to reality.

"I think it sounds like there's a good chance this is something."

"You know, if that guy's method of getting into people's heads does have a range, maybe this happened now because we're closer, it's stronger here . . . What do you think of Dr. Ike?"

"Uh, well, he strikes me as a solitary type. Doesn't talk much outside his circle."

Ariadne agreed. Indeed, his public record was little but business and his words were carefully chosen. No getting in there without knowing him a few years. Personality, check. Relevance of profession, check. She mined her brain, trying to recall if any other of their markers had turned up.

"Forties, maybe; probably a professor or consult for a local university," Arthur continued.

"His assistant, she seems . . . squirrelly," Ariadne said slowly.

"Yeah. What did she say her job was?"

"Computational analysis. But I just think it's weird . . ."

"Think what's weird?"

"Yesterday she said she did computational analysis, but she called the receptionist to help her reset that intro program. Don't you think that's strange? That a _computations_ researcher would have to call for help to reset the _computer_ basics? I think she lied. And I think he knew me, and I want to know how."

"Fair point. Let's think about what we can verify, though, to be safe: Ike Levesque. Research record up and down the west coast, studying Alzheimer's and that's all they'll say . . . Um, Levesque is a common French-Canadian name . . . maybe he's from up in Vancouver, or at least has family that is. I had a friend that knew someone once. Did you ever study there?"

"No. I – I guess it could have been random? Or . . . Oh my God," Ariadne said. The last puzzle piece landed in her ready hands.

 _West coast. Dream-sharing. Latin. Smoking._

 _France._

"What?"

"Levesque might not be French-Canadian. Just _French_."

Minutes later they had Miles on the phone, pulled from the brink of sleep and a heap of ungraded term papers. He swept his glasses out of the pile and trudged from the deserted kitchen table to his desk, and fired up an ancient, hulking laptop. A brief emergency search confirmed Icarus Levesque had no record or Notice posted in Interpol.

"Says here he moved to the U.S. with his father some years ago. Clean as a whistle," Miles read off of a family biographical site.

Arthur frowned.

". . . And that he was employed for a while as a library clerk while he worked his way through med school," Miles continued. Not exactly unusual, or telling. "Meanwhile his father . . ." he trailed off.

"What?" Ariadne blurted. Her professor pulled his gaze from the page and looked directly into the webcam.

"His father moved them here because he was recruited by the CIA into the Directorate of Science and Technology . . . which, as insiders know, birthed the beginnings of the Pasiv program."

 _Je t'ai eu._

* * *

When they screeched to a halt outside the gray laboratory complex, the fuchsia sedan was nowhere in sight. The lot was fuller, though, with more employees returned for the week. They blew through the front doors with all the quiet fury of a bay wind.

Arthur crossed the lobby in four long strides and one dragging breath, Ariadne at his heels. Had it not been for the comings and goings of a Monday morning – the staff, the tours, the meetings, the mail – he'd have broken the frosted glass that sealed Levesque's area, but with so many witnesses discretion contained him. Instead the pair waited until receptionist Jeremy was busied with signing off for the UPS deliveries, and slid through the door behind the front desk they'd seen him use the day before. As Arthur suspected, the hall was a central vein that ran deep into the complex, with backdoors to many of the privately rented facilities. He tried to recall the lab's room number. Two turns later, Ariadne dashed ahead and found it first.

Arthur produced his set of lock picks and went to work on the door. Being theoretically unavailable to the public and tenants, this portion of the building was older, cruder, and thankfully, less technologically advanced. He knelt, saw a shadow of his sleek hair reflected on the brass. The capabilities of modern technologies were exhilarating, but sometimes it felt just as good to work manually with steel. The Glock concealed under his blazer seemed to gain an ounce with every pin that gave.

The pair was silent, but the hinges were not. When Arthur and Ariadne entered, they came face to face with Cierra, poised with a hefty graduated cylinder in hand and glaring up at them from under fiery bangs.

"Is there a problem?" she said tactfully.

Arthur disarmed her of the cylinder as Ariadne pushed past, into the lab. Cierra slammed the door behind them.

"Hey! Stop!"

But they were already inside. Ariadne slowed to a halt under the first row of fluorescents. One hand curled under her scarf, the other rested her weight on the end of a lab bench. She scarcely felt Arthur's grip close around her shoulder. Before them, the MRI machine they'd seen on their tour was uncovered. And running.

The base of the thing whirred, and now the patient bed inched out. When it came to a halt, the doctor sat up and scooted to its edge. He unstrapped a gray garment and made to hang it on the corner of a cabinet, where it then dangled next to his Malorium Grant award plaque. His arm strayed slightly under the weight.

Arthur and Ariadne looked on in confusion.

"You're wearing a lead vest into an MRI?" Did he have a death wish?

Dr. Levesque sighed, exasperated. "This is no MRI, dear. No danger. Not anymore."

All scientific laboratories, with the exception perhaps of those run by botanists, are cold. But now this one seemed to grow impossibly colder when Ariadne realized what it was she was looking at.

"What is it, then?" she said anyway.

Levesque gave a faint smile at her question and rose smoothly to his feet.

"I think you already know."

For a moment the only sounds were heartbeats and lights and chittering rodents.

"Then you _are_ . . ."

"Yes, I am him. I am the one who's been sifting through your dreams. While I'm sure it's not the _most_ pleasant way inside you, I must say it has been a fascinating experience."

"You fucking—" Arthur began, and lunged, but by joint effort Ariadne and Cierra reeled him back. Dr. Levesque flinched but didn't retreat. He sighed and walked round a lab bench, trailing his fingers across the countertop as he went.

"Don't you want to hear about the machine? If we're all done lying, if we can be _civil_ with one another, I would love to show it to you."

 _The machine?_ Arthur fumed and Ariadne wiped the mental slime from her thoughts, but both remembered what they'd come for. Information awaited. Levesque stopped beside the not-MRI, where a computer monitor attached to an IV drip was mounted, and punched a few buttons on the touchscreen. Finally, he faced them and laid a tender palm on the shell just above the tube opening. An unseen pressure point opened a maintenance hatch to reveal the guts of the thing. To a layman it was almost unrecognizable, but anyone could see this repurposed shell certainly wasn't full of magnets. A complex web of circuitry filled most of the inside, sprinkled with twinkling LEDs, and thick, gurgling tubes wrapped the perimeter.

"I haven't named it, yet, but this is the result of my last few years of work. A device which, entirely self-contained, allows the user to remotely infiltrate the mind of another while they're in the dream state. Cierra – my darling, talented chemist – and I are still testing its limits, but currently its range is hundreds of miles.

"Not the English language nor any other I know can yet provide words to accurately describe the feeling of using it, but for now, think of it like a radio scanner. Through it I can seek and find patches of activity. So it happens that activity from those using other consciousness-altering devices shines most strongly of all."

Arthur said, "And this is safe?"

"Yes. Er, well, largely so. Had one incident with the vitals monitor a few months back. Charge overloaded and the thing went haywire – shrieked like a banshee, it did. Shattered half the glass in this place, and some of the neighbors' too."

Most of the lab was back to normal, all patched up, but Arthur could see evidence that remained. One window was tone gray, not matching the others, two countertop beakers had chips along the base seams, and the watch on Levesque's wrist, dead as a paperweight, had a lightning bolt crack diagonal across the middle of its face.

The doctor folded his hands.

"It's like a Pasiv. But . . . wireless," Ariadne said quietly. Remote. No synchronized Somnacin connections needed.

"It is a wondrous piece of technology. Will revolutionize your – erm – business."

She frowned. "This is an invasion of privacy."

"This is a natural expansion of the Pasiv program."

"Natural step? This is a whole different ballgame! You could pick the brain of anyone on the planet, without them knowing. This goes beyond corporate espionage; you're talking about spying on civilians, children, psychic warfare–"

"I am talking . . . about a higher level of somnotelepathic communication. You should be ecstatic."

Arthur spoke up. "Look, this is innovative but you're crossing a line. This thing needs trials. The Pasiv program–"

"Is incomplete."

"Took years of testing and development and regulation to get to the level of relative safety it's at. Do you even realize what happens to people when this thing turns out to have a glitch? Innocent people? Look at Ariadne!"

"So that _is_ the vixen's real name. A goddess indeed."

"Were you even listening?" Ariadne exploded.

"Ariadne, we should go," said Arthur. Now they knew many things with certainty. An anonymous call to the SFPD could clear up all their problems.

"You're not going," the scientist said.

"We're going," Arthur said, grabbing Ariadne by the arm and pulling her towards the door.

"We're all going," Dr. Levesque recited, then dropped his voice, "But you're not leaving. I need my oneironaut, and you need this technology. You owe it to the scientific world to stay."

"Yeah, we owe it to the world to call the cops on this crackhouse."

Levesque sneered. "Hmm . . . Why _is_ it I think you're bluffing? Oh yes, right, you wouldn't survive revealing your knowledge, yourselves to the police for what you really are in the process, either. You're criminals, like me but cheap cons instead of driven intellectuals. But you still can't resist pushing the envelope, can you? In that you and I are spun of the same thing, and you know it'd be best if we stayed woven together."

"That's not true," Ariadne spat. "We – we do our job. We don't cost people their sanity along the way. You do _damage_. You're a monster."

"People shouldn't lose their minds just so you can get rich," Arthur added, hand on the doorknob.

"Rich? I have no interest in material gain; I've made a comfortable living. I've decided to release the design files, actually, free of charge."

They turned back to face him.

"What?!"

The doctor repeated his intention to release his invention's schematics to the public. "Later this year, I am hoping. But if you _do_ attempt to contact the authorities, and by some miracle they believe you, I'll do it immediately, before they can even arrive."

He grinned at the unrestrained horror on their faces. Especially on Ariadne's; he'd seen it before, and since wondered if her expression of fear in dreams was true to the real-life one. It was.

Arthur dropped his hand from the door and shifted his arm, apparently out of discomfort.

"And, before you just shoot me and ransack the lab for the plans, know that your entrance into this compound has been recorded on three separate security cameras, along with time stamp, and Cierra and the desk boy can both place you here. You won't get away."

Arthur took his hand out of his jacket, resignedly empty. Levesque strolled between lab benches and relaxed there.

"Besides, it's not like you could sneak that," he nodded at the behemoth of a machine, "out the back door, now could you? It would be found; someone would continue my work."

Reluctantly, the pair drifted back into the main room, and Cierra returned to her post of dutifully trying to guard the door. From her gloves the smell of acid drifted after them. It soured the air and sharpened Ariadne's thoughts. _The chemist, not computer scientist after all._ So many lies in this room, such treacherous tactics. If, truly, this mad scientist released his schematics to the world, there could be a hundred more like this machine by the end of the year; a hundred more remote robbers, peeping Toms, fires to put out for lawmen and physicians alike. This man's device was experimental at best, and if it and its flaws got out, especially in hands cruel as his had been, there would be no containing it.

"What is it you want, then?" Ariadne asked carefully, "Why don't you want us to go?"

Levesque pursed his lips. "I don't want _you_ to go, _Ariadne_. Provided your gentleman here can keep quiet, I don't give a damn if he leaves, really. But, anyways, as you may have noticed, dreams in which I infiltrate and exercise too much influence have a tendency to . . . collapse." He looked at the ground somewhat sheepishly. "And verbal communication across distance is obviously still an issue. I need to recruit a dreamer – an oneironaut – with a talent for building stable worlds."

"No. I said no with a gun to my head, and I'm saying no now."

"Technically, you did say yes eventually. And I would pay you very well – you are, after all, a trained architect, I assume?"

"I didn't know what help you wanted then. _This_ , this isn't right. And, wait – so why take my stipend if you were gonna pay me off anyway? To . . . lure me here?"

Levesque looked insulted. "I did no such thing. Cierra was at your hotel, but she is no thief." All eyes turned to the chemist.

She looked down at the lab bench. "It's true I was in L.A., first to test the device's range, then to make contact with you after your Pasiv activity was detected, but the night I got there someone broke into your room," she said. "It wasn't me, I swear. I – I saw them leave, I think it was one of the staff, and I was curious about you, so I went in. I thought you were gone for the night; I'm so sorry."

"No need for apology, Cierra. So you see, madame, it was not me." Levesque looked Ariadne over and tapped her forehead, at which she flinched. "Some things are more valuable than money, _conpar."_

Ariadne didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved he wasn't the one to rob her. Somehow a chance burglary didn't sit as well with her as a targeted one. She pulled herself back to the request at hand.

She said, "But why me?" _Wasn't that the ever-enduring question._ But truly, why not go after Arthur? He was more experienced, more knowledgeable, more skilled, and just as accessible. They were in the same hotel, for God's sakes. Levesque seemed to read this meaning from her question. He took a breath and looked briefly to the ceiling, trying to find the best way to explain.

"As an _etudiant en architecture_ ," he began, "you must have worked with clay?"

"Of course . . ." Ariadne responded cautiously. All the time, in modeling courses.

Levesque nodded appreciatively. "Then, tell me," he continued, "which is more suitable to mold to your purpose: a new, fresh block, or a fine sculpture already well-shaped and hardened by fire?"

"You wanted a rookie."

Levesque smiled, lips-only. "Only fools recruit solely the experienced."

He strode back to the machine then, graceful as a lemur, and made to close the maintenance hatch. A good pinch on one of the internal tubes first, to check its pressure.

"What's that?" Ariadne asked.

"Coolant. Hydrogen," he replied as he snapped the little door shut. "Hydrogen – helps things go up, one way or another, unless you're talking about temperature."

Ariadne retreated into her thoughts, trying to snatch one that made sense as they all swam by in a whirlpool of perplexity. They'd caught him, finally, finally caught him, the man invading her dreams – he stood not six feet before her – and now he wanted her _help_? At university she had never been at home in the scientific laboratories, but never shied away from a design challenge, either. But this . . . this wasn't right. All her fears of criminality, all her doubts about the morality of using the Pasiv shrank before the monolith of this man's work. The Pasiv jobs were invasive, sure, but they were targeted and temporary, and required the work of a diligent team. The injustice in Levesque's machine was like splitting a lion from its hunting pride and training it to use a shotgun. It would eliminate the natural fighting chance normally accorded to the gazelles.

Somewhere, Dr. Levesque was back to explaining how he'd found her.

". . . And what luck it was that you, a fresh, young, prodigious talent should wander into my scope. I do have contacts at the Ecole and such, you know, but I still think it would have taken me some time to get them to track you down, given the nature of this, er, venture . . . but you came, and so easily, so willingly . . . took me only a fraction of the time to sort out your background and whereabouts from your own subconscious."

Ariadne clenched her jaw. Levesque grinned like a cocky wolf, gray hair and lopsided flash of white teeth, triumphant over his caught lamb. Though with the stiffness in his long arms, outstretched to grip the benchtops on either side, he might as well have been a spider, rather. And she'd wandered, by chance and curiosity, right into his web.

"I can't help you develop this. I won't. Don't you see what you're doing is wrong?"

Levesque cocked his head.

"And this coming from a woman who abandoned an honest profession to pursue the theft of ideas? At least I was _born_ into the field of dream-sharing. I didn't choose this. In many ways, you are more in the wrong than I."

"Last I checked, we didn't hospitalize anyone," Arthur said. "Shut it down."

"On whose authority? Sacrifices must always be made in the name of progress. Join me in this progress, dear."

"No. Shut it down," Ariadne echoed. Just then, there was a rap at the door. All four of them looked to the silhouette.

Outside, Jeremy droned, "Mail."

Levesque started walking towards the door but did not give up his argument.

"Tell you what, I'll give you a couple of days on your own to come to your senses and return here. If you don't come back, or try to leave the region, you'll go the way of my Malorium Grant competitors and the world will have my blueprints before you know it. There is nowhere you can hide your mind will not betray to me. Don't wander. Two days. Tick tock."

He allowed them a few moments to escape out the other door undetected before letting in Jeremy to deliver his AmScope order.

* * *

When they got back in the car, the sleek thing rocked with the force of the door slamming. The little pine cone hung from the rearview mirror spun crazily.

"Good God," Arthur said, though he scarcely believed in either. They sped out of the lot at twice the legal limit.

They were back in the row house, seated Indian-style across from each other on the water bed before anything else was said.

"We could cut the power to the labs," Ariadne said abruptly. "Call the cops while his computers are down." Arthur shook his head, slicked hair shining in the midday sun through the blinds.

"He has at least one laptop with battery power. And if the machine uses hydrogen coolant it's probably capable of generating some wattage of its own."

"We could alert the Somnacin regulatory board. They'd know how to get to him."

"Too risky. If he sees them coming and releases the schematics, it won't matter if they come down on him. There'll be dozens more like him within a week. Besides, we'd have to out ourselves." He shifted and the water bed sloshed loudly, and Ariadne stifled a giggle despite the situation.

Arthur put his hand on his stomach and exhaled. "Pardon me, I'm absolutely starving," he joked. Now both laughed. Ariadne knelt and shuffled closer.

"We could . . . convince him to give it up." The fraction of a meter between them seemed to stretch wider when Arthur grew serious again.

"You mean . . . inception? Just the two of us?"

"Well . . ." Ariadne didn't want to drag the rest of the team in more than they already had. Certainly they could manage. "We've got the Pasiv. We probably wouldn't even have to go that deep."

"He's experienced, though."

"I can't think of anything else to do, can you?" Plan-making was Arthur's department, but so was leading the team. Now there was no team. Plan options were significantly constrained.

". . . No. He'll probably catch on, but I suppose it's worth trying. Letting him think he talked himself out of this."

There was a pause. "He said two days. We should practice."

Without any real objective in mind, they unpacked the Pasiv tubes in silence and lay down, this time on the circular mandala rug on the floor by the foot of the bed.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

For the next hour they wandered an unspecific city with generic gray buildings, drilling mazes and paradoxical traps and marksmanship over and over again until even their non-physical bodies seemed to show fatigue. After, they rested: Arthur found a skyscraper of glass by some sea, and within it they walked the Penrose stairs, forever aloft exactly a hundred stories above the waves.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Ariadne sighed and rolled over. The music was growing to a crescendo, so loud now her ears were beginning to ache. She fumbled for her phone. She found it, a bright spot in the dim room, and switched the music off. Pounding silence.

First, she noticed the smell. How on earth it hadn't woken them she didn't know. It was putrid and sweaty, close to her and thick as a muddy swamp. The blurred floor space beyond her phone slid into focus when she put the thing down, and Ariadne found herself staring at a pair of very dirty bare feet.

Suddenly, a shower of white cubes rained down from above the feet and bounced across the floor toward her.

"Oh. My. Sweet baby Jesus," Floyd said. A plate dangled from one limp, lanky arm. Now Arthur sat up and blinked. The pair sat on the floor, frozen, exposed to a stranger with IVs in their arms and the Pasiv open and running.

"I never thought I'd see one for real." Floyd gazed into the center of the Pasiv device as if hypnotized, the glowing red reflected in glazed eyes. Still Ariadne only breathed. Their secret was out.

Floyd must've finally taken notice of Arthur's murderous glare, because he unfroze and went from gaping to sputtering, "Sheesh, I'm real sorry you two. I knocked – really – but I figure you didn't hear because of the music . . . Just wanted to see if you wanted, uh, lunch." He looked at the floor.

Arthur glanced at the tofu cubes scattered like craps dice. "No, thanks. We don't."

"Okay, all cool. Lemme clean this up – do you mind if I have a look at . . .?" He knelt and tried to sweep up the scattered food.

"Yeah, actually I do," Arthur said. He snapped the Pasiv shut, almost catching Floyd's wandering fingers in it. "We've already got enough to deal with right now, and I'd rather you just forget you saw that."

"Tough to do, my man." His voice was soft as he stacked the last of the cubes back in a pyramid on the plate.

"Well, I'll have to strongly insist you try."

Floyd looked so crushed Ariadne couldn't keep from offering a comfort.

"Hey, you seem nice and all but we can't really let anyone in on this right now. I'm in some trouble and we have to do some training; it's important."

Floyd paused at the doorway. "Training?" Most of the civilian Pasiv devices went to the super rich with their frivolity and taste for novelty, or to the lucky few who had gotten them before governments cracked down on regulations. _Training_ was for the military, and these two didn't look military.

Floyd did happen to glance at the hutch at the foot of the bed, and on top were spread notes and plans and freehanded technical blueprints. He started when he noticed the Glock sitting on the nightstand beyond. Military or not, these two were into something serious and were not to be messed with.

"Forget it," Arthur said, glancing at Ariadne for a moment. "Out."

"It's my house . . . but I guess yur payin', dude." He slunk out the door. ". . . Doing it wrong, though," he muttered softly to the empty hall.

Ariadne said, "What?"

"I said _you're doing it wrong_." He reappeared and gestured at their plans. "All this . . . technical, hardline shit. You'd dream better the other way."

A few beats of silence. Dust hung like time-frozen snow between them.

"The other way? What do you mean?"

Floyd sighed out his rigid nose and leant his head against the doorframe. Through the forest of blond locks, one could almost see complex thought going on behind his eyes.

"Tell you what," he began, "I'll show you. Just lemme use that thing once – one trip – and I promise while we're there I'll show you everything I know."

"I don't think–"

"C'mon, dudes. One trip. I swear I won't tell nobody else. And I'll – I'll waive your rental fee! Pssh. Gone."

Ariadne knew before he'd finished his sentence she'd say yes. He was harmless; maybe a little quirky and a little high, true, but when she looked at him she looked into innocence. Innocence had no place in this battle, but a lot of things were out of place by this point. The ticking clock was narrowing the path forward down to a brittle bone, options falling away like tender fowl.

It took several minutes to attach a third tube, sterilize a new needle and readjust the sedative dosage, but not a full one of them was silent. Floyd blubbered his thanks and awe and swore his secrecy over and over. He brought his wrist to his eye to dab a tear before it could escape.

"I've been learning dreaming for years, dudes – and, an' everybody says these things are the tightest, give you the best trip, but I never could get one on account of havin' a record. You don't know what this means."

"Save it," Arthur mumbled, though he remembered the giddy feeling himself. That first firecracker taste of the unbounded adventure of the Pasiv dreamworld. "Just show us what you know."

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

They landed in a town square, a stone plaza bordered by shops on three sides and waterfront on the fourth. Beyond the narrow inlet were suburbs and spotty forest. Not terribly complicated, but plenty of material to work with. Ariadne figured it would do.

They stood on low steps at the edge of the square, backs to the shops, facing the inlet. The barest hint of breeze came off of the water, and brought the smells of motor oil and salt. Ducks rode the bouncing waves and quacked at the newcomers as they paddled by. Ariadne and Arthur looked first at each other, then at Floyd. He spun a full 360 and ran a hand over his hair, soaking in every ounce of warm color and salt and layered noise the dreamworld dispensed.

"Frickin' _wicked,_ " he smiled, "It's so clear! It's like – it's like a movie. In 1080p." He flexed his wiry hands and spread his fingers, looking down in awe as if he'd never seen them before in his life, pinching them together a pair at a time.

"Why, I've got ten fingers . . ." he said, running over them again once more to be sure. Arthur rolled his eyes. _High as a damn kite, and about as useful._ He was sure this was a waste of time.

Ariadne was puzzled. "Yeah, so?"

"Are you sure we're dreaming?" Floyd looked up for a moment with a hint of fear in his voice. The falter of a man who's begun to question his own perception of reality. Ariadne realized with a jolt they'd forgotten to tell him about totems, though she wasn't sure what that had to do with having fingers.

"Definitely. Just try to stay calm. Watch." She moved to render a new bridge across the inlet to prove it to him.

But Floyd wasn't paying attention. He stayed mesmerized by his hands, folding and unfolding, counting for the third time. Arthur was beginning to wonder why he'd lied, said he knew something useful he clearly didn't, just to get here and do nothing. Also, how to deal with it – shoot him, or let them wake naturally and then reprimand him?

Ariadne's bridge sprang out of the sea, dripping as it ascended into the air between the suburbs and the town waterfront, just high enough that a gondola or speedboat might pass under. "See?" she said, pointing.

Floyd pointed, too, not at the bridge – one index finger extended out and his other hand open. With great focus, he pressed the tip of his index finger slowly but firmly into the center of the open palm.

And it came out the other side.

"What the _hell_ ," Arthur said, and actually stumbled back half a step. Their guest showed no sign of surprise, or pain for that matter. He separated his hands calmly and smiled at the gaping pair.

"Just a test. I'm guessin' you tell a different way?" Floyd said. Ariadne nodded dumbly.

"I figured. So, uh, what'd you wanna know? Mind if I play a little?" After a moment Arthur and Ariadne nodded their assent.

Floyd cracked his knuckles and, grinning, thrust one arm out over the water like a karate master delivering a palm strike. Barefoot and muscled, and, they noticed for the first time, wearing robes rather than his real-life outfit, he looked the part. Under his hand the clouds on the horizon parted, the very sky parted, and revealed was an exploding, rainbow nebula over the sea. The water stayed bright and sunlit gold. It was so uncannily beautiful Arthur and Ariadne might have been projections, for all they could do was stare.

They were better than most at manipulating dreams in-progress – maybe the best in the world. But there were some things they hadn't thought to do. Some things they simply didn't touch. Buildings were for building and warping, people for imitating, weapons for conjuring and using, if needed, but the natural order itself was an unreachable out-of-bounds.

Something – maybe the ducks or a commotion on the plaza or the sudden gust of wind – brought them back. "Floyd," Ariadne hissed, "The projections! Someone's going to notice us." She glanced furtively over her shoulder and indeed, a good number of people were leaving the plaza, marching in unison towards their stone steps.

He glanced over his shoulder and sized up the oncoming mob. "So?" With a snap of his fingers he sent a flash of what could only have been described in natural terms as ball lightning searing towards the projections. A few fell and most others were stunned. A second burst, glowing and gold, expanded before it got there into a shimmering wall that formed a forcefield along their broad waterfront steps.

This one proved a little too much and the kickback sent Floyd staggering. His long legs tripped him on the edge of the lowest step, and he fell, arms waving for balance, over the edge and into the bay. But the splash never came.

Instead Floyd reappeared, first his disordered hair, then the rest of him, arms outstretched, rising up back over the sea wall on nothing but the steady wind. His feet slapped the stone again and he glanced out at the water.

"Whoops," he said, dusting off his hands.

"Did you just _fly_?" Ariadne said.

"Gosh, you two really are professionals. _Yes,_ I just flew, and it's the first thing most people learn how to do here. Loosen up a little." He walked back over and clapped Ariadne on the shoulder.

By now it was getting dark, the sun sinking into the horizon against the unnaturally translucent sky. Frowning, Floyd reached a cupped hand out and caught it before it could go down. _Just reached out and caught the god-damned sun_. All three stood there looking at it, frozen half-below the waves, from the safety of their force-fielded spot.

"So, magic. That's what you do. That's what you know?" said Arthur.

"Yeah," drawled Floyd, sitting cross-legged now. Not sitting on anything in particular, just sitting. "Just a matter of openin' your mind, y'know? It's not normally as . . . stable as your thingy makes this, but still . . . Amazing what you can do if you tell yourself it's possible."

Ariadne asked, "And you'll teach me – us?"

"Assumin' it can be taught, yeah. I've never had another person here before so I don't know." The paused sunset lit his eyes and lashes with flecks of gold, and music began to roll in with the tide.

"Time's almost up," Arthur said.

"Mmkay. Watch this, dudes!" With that Floyd extended an arm and shoved the sun into the ocean, and a brilliant green flash burst out across the dreamscape, and when it faded they were left in ink-black night under the crystal stars.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Aside from the twin mattress shoved into the far corner, the solitary piece of furniture adorning Floyd's bedroom was a moldy bookcase far too narrow for the blank wall against which it stood. Floyd swiped a volume from the top shelf almost without looking. He held it out to Arthur and Ariadne when they approached behind him.

"All in here, dudes."

Ariadne took the paperback in one hand and pushed her hair back with her other. The book was old, definitely, all worn and musty when she held it close. She blinked away the last of the effects of the sedative, and the title on the cover became clear. _Lucid Dreaming_ , it read in sweeping, almost calligraphic script, _Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D._ In the background, an eye floating in space peered through a window out at the title text. At the readers.

"This?"

Floyd nodded and gestured that they should open it. Arthur reached forward and opened the cover with two fingers. They paged through it at random, landing finally on Chapter 5, in a section entitled _Nightmares_ at the top.

"It says to treat the monsters of your nightmares as if they're your friends, and then they will be _,"_ Ariadne summarized. "Doesn't really apply here, considering he's real," she huffed. They flipped on.

"A lot of the background's awful redolent of Keith Hearne's research before, but this here is the book that took off," Floyd narrated as they paged through. "It was popular in the 80's, but I think everyone forgot about it by the time Pasivs were invented."

Inside there was advice on how to remember, how to create, and how to delve into a very peculiar form of yoga.

And ahead they found a passage on subjectivity: all of life, it asserted, was full of such experiences, and thus not so different from dreaming as people might think. For some reason, it rang like a sermon.

Arthur asked, "This LaBerge guy, says here he's from Stanford. Is he still around?" An author close enough to San Francisco to get some help without angering Levesque. It would be an unbelievable stroke of luck.

"Nah, unfortunately he skipped to Hawai'i," Floyd said.

"And Keith?"

"British."

"Damn."

"Sucks, but I think you'll find there's plenty you can learn from them on paper." Floyd again nodded at the book.

"Thanks, I'm sure we can," Ariadne said.

They spent the next hour skimming the yellowed text for useful bits on this other side of man's adventures into the dreamworld. Lucid dreaming, it was called, and the influences of Eastern meditative techniques on some of its early researchers. Before the Directorate of Science and Technology had come along, with its engineers and its chemists, to design a precise system for not only invoking the dreamworld at will, but sharing it, those wanting to taste that freedom had had to rely on their own discipline and sometimes months of training to dream awake.

They didn't depend on blueprints and exact formulae to do their dreaming, but far older, blurrier aides like mindfulness exercises, ancient texts, and the word of gurus. Before the technological prowess of someone like Cobb's team (or like Levesque) they might have seemed disadvantaged, but lost with these older methods were guides for teaching oneself to do all sorts of things – impossible things – flying, manipulation of nature, soul-searching, and even unconventional combat. As Arthur and Ariadne pored over the pages, they gathered all that might be useful to have up their sleeves at the end of the two day mark, which ticked ever closer.

* * *

 **So, what do you think? Was it a perfect 5/7? ;) #internetjokes**

 **R &R!**

 **\- Hazel**


	6. Specus

**This is Part 6. To the in-progress readers, I'd like to apologize for it being posted late; I wanted to make sure this penultimate chapter was complete and polished, and that wasn't going to happen a couple of weeks ago with my exams. But, it is here now. Constructive criticism is always welcome.**

 **I do not own Inception, still no Italian restaurants either, Weebles toys, Styrofoam (which is apparently a specific brand, not just a material?), or** _ **Alice's Adventures in Wonderland**_ **.**

* * *

"The vision must be followed by venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs." – Vance Havner

* * *

Cierra von Brandt was long lost in the churning depths of a mug of black coffee by the time Levesque arrived in the break room. She hunched over the speckled round table, the only furniture that populated the place aside from a handful of chairs and a humming minifridge. The scar tissue on her palms numbed them, so she hugged the cup on the table gently and relied on the steam to tell her when it was drinkable. It was still close to boiling.

There was a time when she would have feared it, before her training and her degrees, before even the accident, when she still viewed anything hotter than a hand warmer with a certain cautious respect. She remembered clearly the day it had changed: her primary school teacher, pulling her aside after lecture, assuring her nervous self that nothing used in elementary lab would hurt her if she took care to understand it well. Sure and soothing, but even at twelve she'd wanted proof.

What a good scientist she'd make someday, he'd said.

So, to prove it he'd dug out a Bunsen burner and hose and some salts and made her set the whole thing up herself, hands shaking as they were. He was adamant she would not graduate afraid. Cierra couldn't remember his name today.

"See, if you can understand it, you can control it, and then there's nothing to be afraid of, is there?" he'd said as he wrote out the basics of a combustion reaction on the blackboard. As soon as she could explain it back to him, he'd stepped aside and allowed her to light the salts. Her face had flushed in amazement when the powder went up in not orange, but silky white flames, fluttering in the air like a bridal veil.

Chemistry had been a science for centuries, but in that moment it was still alchemy. It was still a magic only barely begun to be tamed. It was

"We need to talk," Levesque announced plainly, jarring her from the memory. Cierra hadn't heard him come in. He turned and began to rummage on his toes through one of the cabinets above the counter.

"About what?" She looked to him with only her eyes, letting them flit up from under her angular brows in the hawkish way she knew he hated. Her voice betrayed no emotion; she'd learned long ago that was the safest way to be.

Levesque emerged victorious with a package of dried mac-and-cheese that had been hiding in some corner. "We need to talk," he said as he punched numbers into the microwave, "about the possibility of failure."

Cierra raised her voice only slightly over the whir. "I've been doing research for nine years. I don't think I need that talk anymore."

Levesque smiled tightly and leaned back against the counter. "Indeed." His eyes flew briefly, unconsciously to her hands. "But I think you know what it is I'm saying, that this . . . situation is a bit different?"

She gave an indulgent half-nod.

"Yes. So – you did a magnificent job reaching that girl, Cierra, and I hope she will cooperate as much as I know you do, but she is stubborn even under threats. We must consider the possibility she will not. There still must be an architect to get this project off the ground."

Levesque carried his meal deftly to the table and sat across from her.

"You know I can't do that for you," Cierra said. She lifted her mug to her lips to hide any relief on her face, even though it burned.

He looked up as he stirred with a plastic fork. "Oh, I know. Not what I'm asking, believe me." He began to eat quickly.

"You think we should try the man, then? Arthur?"

"Not exactly. He's worse than she is, and he knows how to fight. You shouldn't drink that so late in the day, you know. You'll never get to sleep."

Cierra shrugged. "I'm used to working nights." She stared through the rectangular window in the door to their lab. The bulbous nodes of the rabbit ears attached to the machine's monitor peeked into her view.

"None of that tonight." Levesque shook his head. "I really am letting them alone a couple days to think things over. See if she responds better to that. During this time we need to make preparations, of course, but no reason to stay here after hours for it." He swallowed the last of his dinner.

"What are we going to do?"

"Well," Levesque began, "If dear Ariadne will not serve as an architect she may still be useful to me. There are others like her, other architects and dreamwalkers, who may not be so . . . conservative. Small-minded. She must know some, and she will lead us to them."

"The man won't let her even if she wanted to. Did you see how protective he was?" Cierra warned.

"He can't stop her if he doesn't know. _She_ can't stop herself if she doesn't know, either."

He stood and threw the plastic bowl in the garbage, and retrieved his coat from its hook. Cierra said nothing.

"But, we can begin in the morning." He shrugged on the coat.

"Is there anything I can say to get you to call this off?" She asked evenly.

He grinned. "No, I'm afraid not. We must keep moving forward. And don't forget your debt to me; your role here is not finished until I have a builder."

Cierra boiled silently.

"Would you like to come along home now?" he asked.

He fucking _asked_. He asked every day, like she had a choice.

As she stood she thought maybe she did. She did not choose to love creating with the invisible, she could not cease to want to understand the clockwork, but maybe someday soon there would be a choice to do something other than this.

* * *

"So, whatall do you need this 'training' for?" Floyd asked as he trumped down the stairs. Arthur and Ariadne followed close behind by touch of the railing, still reading intently. The row house creaked and flexed under its visitors.

"Huh? Oh – uh, it's complicated," Arthur said. Ariadne took a breath.

"We should tell him."

"Your call."

Now both men looked at Ariadne.

"Well, it's . . . the thing is," she said, "that there's a man here in San Francisco that's invented a way to do what the Pasiv does, but remotely."

"Really?" Floyd's golden brows shot up. "Sweet!"

"No, no, there's a problem. He hurts people with it. Ea— someone we know found out he sent a few to the hospital just because they were rivals. He drives them insane, tortures them from the inside, and now he's moved on to me."

"Oh, gosh . . . Why?"

"He's trying to push me into joining his project. I have to find a way out. Arthur and I think we've thought of one."

"Arthur?"

 _Oh, right. Fake names._ Ariadne apologized and reintroduced them under their true identities. Floyd assured them it was alright.

"I see why you had to lie," he said. "D'you want some dinner? I'm guessin' you wanna stay inside."

By now they were downstairs, where there was even less furniture than above and dust balls ruled the floors. The pair accepted and Floyd gestured for them to sit in the dining room, which contained neither a dining table nor chairs. Instead, on the floor there sat a worn-out oaken coffee table, surrounded by a series of mismatched pillows in varying conditions.

Arthur and Ariadne sat slowly, across from one another, and Floyd strolled off to the kitchen, whistling, as if this were all perfectly normal. Arthur wasn't laughing, but the light that played in his eyes from the sunset made it look like he was.

It _was_ funny, wasn't it, how bizarre it all was? How in the silent war between an architect and a scientist for the dreamworld of the former, the dark horse just might turn out to be a sunkissed hippie and his moldy New Age-y volumes? Arthur certainly thought so. Ariadne met his eyes, and smirked. He wished he could tell if the joy was real; it would have been so comforting to say yes, she could still smile through all of this, they could still laugh like there wasn't a time bomb with their names on it, ready to be unleashed on the world.

A stack of yellowed paperbacks sat on the table next to Ariadne. On top, the eye did not blink.

Arthur saw it staring at her, sucking her smile with its piercing gaze, and dove to catch the optimism before it could escape.

"So, _after_ we convince him to give it up, where do you want to go?"

Ariadne suspected attached was the gentle suggestion to _not stay in California._

"Hmm . . . I've never been to England, but Professeur Miles says it is nice, some months. Or Monaco – if it's safe to go back, considering all the excitement going on there now."

Arthur shrugged. "That sort of thing could turn up anywhere, these days."

"Or, maybe Yusuf and Mr. Eames had the right idea." Sand and sunshine away from the monsters and the city and the scientists sounded pretty good.

Arthur agreed, and just then Floyd strode in. He carried a steaming baking pan delicately with two mitts, and bent low to place it on the table.

"Walnut-bean loaf!" he announced, smiling broadly.

Arthur and Ariadne took some out of courtesy, but jumped at the opportunity to spend their meal in conversation rather than eating when their host provided it.

"So," he said, and then chewed and swallowed before continuing, "you said some scientist's up an' built a machine up here by the city, and you want it gone? How issit you plan on doin' that?"

The pair looked at each other, and Arthur spoke first.

"We have ways of planting intent into his head, slipping it into dreams. We'll convince him to stop using his device that way, let him think he convinced himself."

"Ah, like subliminal advertisin'."

"Yes, in essence."

Floyd tapped his fork in the air.

"But," he said, "to do that, he'd haveta be asleep."

"Yes. That part's harder."

Ariadne shifted. They hadn't talked as much about this part of the plan, and to her it was certainly the worst to talk about. The most criminal.

"You goin' to his house?" Floyd grinned, teeth spotted with flecks of kale. He'd already guessed otherwise.

"No, we'll have to stage something in the lab, sedate him and make it look like he did it himself, accidentally maybe, for when he comes to."

Floyd nodded in agreement as he shoveled in a rigid rectangular scoop of bean loaf. But Ariadne was less sure. She'd suggested the idea of inception herself, yes, but with every passing minute it seemed a worse one.

"Do you think he'll actually believe it? That he chose to call all this off on his own?"

"Sure," Floyd said. "I mean, these sorts'a people end up destroying themselves alotta the time, really – too much money, overwork, impulse, you name it – a person or company'll collapse without any outside help whatsoever. Hell, even a nuclear blast starts out as an _im_ plosion."

As Floyd cleared their mismatched plates, a strange feeling came over them in the silence: here they sat at an unwitting rich man's table, with two days to breathe _(to live)_ before the axe fell on maybe both of them, definitely Ariadne. Arthur would have preferred the first option. His wine sat half-untouched, and Floyd did not take it when he returned. All were glad when he filled the table with his speech again.

"So, you wanna train? In what, exactly?"

Ariadne nodded. "Controlling the natural world," she answered resolutely. Every detail had to be perfect for this inception to work. After a beat she added, "And combat." _In case it comes to a fight_. Inception was their first choice, and of course they already knew the schema of that – but inception was impossible, and they'd already defied impossibility once.

"But you want to change his mind."

"Ideally."

"But, this week's been less than ideal," Arthur added.

Floyd snorted. "True that, my dude." He clapped his hands together once, softly. "How're you gonna do it? – Ideally. . . ?"

"Shouldn't be giving away trade secrets, but . . . at the core of inception is an idea, a simple one and the more emotional the better. Like, for this we need to say, 'I will end my remote dream-sharing project,' but that's not good enough, not simple enough, not yet."

"So you're sayin', like, what's the feeling at the core of it all?"

"Exactly."

Ariadne, who had been looking intently up at the rusty chandelier with no lightbulbs hung overhead, said, "Aspiration. I think it's aspiration."

"How so?" Arthur asked.

"He said, 'join me in this progress' . . . kept talking about progress and grants and pushing the envelope . . . I think he has such strong aspirations to be different and new that it's consumed him; it's unhealthy."

"But how do we—" Arthur had not even the time to finish his sentence before the way to merge the emotion and idea came to Ariadne. The plan flowed from her mouth, now.

"His father," she said. "His father worked on the early Pasiv program, right? On something with a _healthy level_ of innovation? So, we just do it like a reverse of the Fischer job – we redirect his ambition and encourage Levesque to be _more_ like his father."

Floyd's head swiveled between them. "A little more _'feet on the ground'_ and a little less _'shoot for the moon_. . . _'_ and, you know, huh?"

". . . Yeah." Arthur's eyes met Ariadne's. "At this rate, I'll be out of a job soon," he said, smiling softly. Inception on an experienced dreamwalker was a risk, yes, and their knowledge of his desires was limited to a snapshot of one meeting in the waking world, yes – but, there were no better ideas on this tattered table.

Ariadne beamed at Arthur, and felt the warm fingers of pride tickle her breast. "Let's get going, then."

* * *

For the third time, they set up the Pasiv in Floyd's row house. This time they were in the living room, seated in a circle on the rug with pillows brought over from the dining room. Ariadne unraveled the tubes while Arthur adjusted the timer and Floyd hummed to himself with an expression on his face like that of a child watching _Star Wars_ for the first time.

Arthur and Ariadne connected each other's intravenous lines, then offered a third out to their host. He took it, insisted on doing it himself, and inserted it into his wrist with ease. A single drop of blood beaded, and, as they watched, trickled like a curious squirrel across his forearm before finally falling to the floor.

Ariadne prayed it would be the last shed before this was all over.

All three reclined onto their cushions and were under in less than a minute. In the steeping haze between waking and dream – she was aware of it now – Ariadne called forth the landscape they'd be working with. Or cityscape, rather – it was an old draft of one of the Fischer levels that she'd scrapped in favor of a better design, and she was sure it was still tucked away in there somewhere.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

They stood at a five-way intersection buzzing with cars and mopeds and honking cabs. Behind them was a subway station.

People spouted out of the subway escalators like minnows and went on their way. None paid the trio any mind, but Arthur stood close behind Ariadne, just in case. They began to walk under a gray sky. Floyd managed to wait until they'd reached the relative seclusion of a city park to shift into his preferred robes. All the way Arthur looked behind them, in the building windows, in the speeding cars for Levesque. So far, nothing. _He really kept his word._

"Aight," Floyd said, turning to face them. "I haven't taught anybody anythin' since I led a yoga retreat in Sedona three years back, and that's different – so be patient, yeah?"

They nodded, Arthur steely, Ariadne focused.

"Five minutes in the real world is an hour here," Arthur said, "so we should have all the time we need." At the rate the dreamworld spun, they could stretch their two days into nearly a month, or at least until their sedative reserves ran low. There could be no flights to Yusuf's to collect more.

"Man, I hope so."

It was a few moments before he spoke again. He clasped his hands together.

"So, from what you all told me about your work, it seems like you spend a whole lotta time and effort making the dreamworld seem real." He took their silence as affirmation. "Well, first things I've gotta tell you is you don't haveta always do that. If this fella you're aimin' to subdue already figures out it's a dream, you don't have to limit yourselves to pistols anymore – but that's worst-case. We'll get to that later."

With a wave of his hand, Floyd turned the sky and it was sunny again.

"Now, stop me if I'm hittin' on somethin' you already know, but I think you should work on bending the non-manmade stuff first. Get yourself used to the idea that mechanics need not apply here."

Ariadne silently agreed. In order to fool a scientist, another dreamwalker, they would need to get _every_ detail right. Not one weather problem, not one flower could be out of place.

Floyd pointed to one of the trees that lined either side of their path.

"Here, move that."

Ariadne zeroed in on it with her mind, and did so quite easily. She'd unknowingly taught herself to see plants as a part of the architecture when she'd designed that fateful hedge labyrinth. She felt down between the branches of the oak like they were tresses, reached gently into the bark, and for her it gave like clay

 _have you ever worked with clay wet clay?_

and the trunk neatly twisted and untwisted until it had scuttled like an octopus a few meters back from its mates.

"Alrighty, good. Now you."

For Arthur it was harder. Things without edges in straight lines and deadlines, things that could not be folded over upon themselves in a perfect mirror did not get along well with him. After some squinting and sweating at it he did manage to move the tree, but mostly by shoving it by the roots using the sidewalk.

He tilted his chin and looked at it with satisfaction.

"Good. Now, catch." With no more warning than that, Floyd swatted over an adjacent building, and the six-story Spaghetti Factory restaurant toppled toward them as if on a hinge.

Ariadne had little time to do more than gasp. They stood, frozen, as the shadow fell over them, dust of brick and gray mortar rained down in their eyes, the frame strained, inside, chairs went screaming across the black wood floor to pile against the windows. All this in less than a second – they stood under this doom like soldiers awaiting a command

 _(catch.)_

Ariadne didn't think to try to bend the building, but if she had she would've found she could not: Floyd was maybe the most talented dreamwalker to roam the Earth in the past thousand years, and he was pushing with all his might. The restaurant passed the tipping point.

Before she had time to do anything, Arthur lunged to the front of the group with his hands for once open and empty. The building swung past thirty degrees. He clenched his fists. All at once limbs from _every_ tree lining the path shot out like bowfishing arrows, out over the middle – twenty degrees now – and snaked together into a lattice tunnel over the trio's heads.

The building struck the tunnel and bent it with a _crunch_ , but the arcing ceiling was impossibly strong. It bowed and gave and sprung back with no more noise or damage than if a branch had caught a roosting hawk.

They stood, panting, beneath the foliage.

"Right on."

Floyd leading, they walked down the tunnel towards where the building met the ground, the fulcrum.

"Arthur, right? You're not an architect, I know, but you might haveta be if you all get split up. Put it back now, please."

Arthur walked close enough that the front of the restaurant sloped just over his head. He ducked to avoid a windowsill, from which an uprooted flowerbox daffodil dangled like a Christmas ornament. Just ahead, the toppled building structure disappeared into the rubble of its foundation. Behind him, the trees groaned and creaked. He felt the urge to say something smart, something quippy, about how weren't they in a _tight spot_ or _it took monks a lifetime to master doing_ that? _Pfft._ or, alternatively, _this would've been reasonable if you'd just let us call a crane, Floyd_ , but he said nothing, because it would have distracted from believing the dream and some instinct told him that believing had everything to do with it.

Arthur reached above his head and placed one hand on the gritty brick face, which waited over them like some cartoon anvil. He imagined the building hollow, made of styrofoam; he imagined every molecule of air with him, lifting, the low pressure of the scattered clouds above reeling it in, imagined lifting not with his muscles but his mind and everything it could see – and pushed.

The Spaghetti Factory tipped up, sprung back into place like a Weeble toy.

A smile like summer filled Floyd's face. "Not bad," he said. "Think we could wake up a minute? There's something else, an' we can't do it here."

Arthur checked the time. Conveniently, there was only a couple dream-minutes' worth of sedative left for this trip; he'd made it short. It would have been terribly awkward, he thought, to explain to their host they'd have to kill each other to wake early.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Floyd exhaled slowly, letting his breath out in a low whistle at the ceiling. He bent one knee and made to get up. He expected to find his muscles cramped and stiff, lying on the wood floor for so long, but there was nothing – he and his guests had, as promised, only lay down for mere moments.

The needle had scarcely hurt going in, and it was almost unnoticeable coming out. Floyd resettled his tube on the silver briefcase, and dashed upstairs.

The square, dark wooden staircase looked too small for him, too narrow and low, and Ariadne found herself thinking of Alice crawling through that tiny rabbit's door to Wonderland. Architects designed for people – for their tastes, comfort, ease of use . . . she wondered who had designed this place, and for whom. Someone shorter? Definitely. Someone older, quainter, normal-er? Probably.

One distressed notebook and two new ones were in Floyd's hands when he returned. He passed the new ones to Arthur and Ariadne, and sat back down next to them.

"Glad I always keep a coupla extras," he said, brandishing a box of pens next. He set it before them.

"What is this?" Ariadne asked.

"Nothing, yet. Just a notebook. But I want you to write down what we just did."

Arthur raised an eyebrow, irked at being treated like a schoolchild. "Why?"

"Well, normally logging all your dreams is somethin' people do to remember 'em better. And I didn't think of it at first because I figured you all already remember everything well enough with the Pasiv, so why bother? But then I thought, it would still help you – if you go write everything down for the next two days, or weeks, I guess, in dreamland time, then you'll have a pretty thorough record of what your brain makes up unconsciously, right?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"So, then you can find the _patterns_. What kinda bad stuff your mind autopilots in there, weather and colors and buildings and everything, and you'll get a feel for what happens when somethin's off, what you'll need to change from the default in order to fool that guy. And, I think it would be good to keep a record of all the stuff you try before you go after him, what works and what doesn't."

He sat silently then, regarding them. Normally, with such a deadline weighing on them this would have been a waste of time, but they had all the time in the world with the Pasiv. The deciding factor – or limiting reagent, as Cierra might have called it – would be their will. How many trials would they put themselves through, how much error and triumph could they bear to put down on those pages before they decided they were ready?

Arthur looked once more at Floyd, at Ariadne, and reached into the box between them. He clicked a pen, and began.

* * *

The ceiling above Cierra was a shade of gray such that it could not have been distinguished from a cloudy night near the city. It might have been cloudy that night; she didn't know. Her window was shuttered.

Many nights like this, with her gray ceiling and flaky shutters and narrow twin cot, she found herself thinking of that teacher of primary school. All these years and she still couldn't remember his name. She wasn't sure if she wanted to, though; she wasn't sure she knew if she would thank him or blame him. Before his mesmerizing demonstration she'd wanted to be a newspaper writer, and Icarus Levesque wouldn't have snatched up a writer, after all, now would he?

But at a newspaper she would have been skin deep in a thousand different stories; as a scientist, she could devote all her life to learning, mastering, _telling_ just one, and one that might someday be more hers than anyone else's in the world.

She didn't think of the teacher tonight, though. She lay on her side in a room locked not with bolts but with promises, and thought of the two visitors to her lab. The man was a force of nature, definitely; behind his impulses she saw instincts that would make anyone think twice about crossing him, a mind that might rival her own in the right setting. But the woman – Ariadne, he'd called her? a funny name – Ariadne seemed meek and small, limited to awe and questions, but she had stood up, unable to be moved, when Levesque challenged her. Cierra wondered if she really was as extraordinary as he claimed.

The inner voice that spoke the things she neither wanted to say nor hear piped up in her head, and said Ariadne probably was; extraordinary people, after all, tended to come in unconventional packages, usually with some heap of baggage, some irksome flaw like that. Celebrities had their specific tastes, brain surgeons were arrogant, revolutionaries could snap like a firecracker if the mood struck them. And Dr. Levesque was, unlike his descriptions of his father, undaunted by the means to achieve his ends, while Ariadne would dig her heels in at every threat to her moral code. The inner voice needled Cierra at her complicit state: a scientist without a cause, a prisoner without locks, a woman without a foreseeable future. And not a fault to her name but scars. Where, on the scale of extraordinary people, did that leave her?

* * *

No sooner had they put down their pens, hands smudged with ink, than they reset the Pasiv and went under again. Ariadne felt like a swimmer bobbing in breaststroke, under and back, under and back, in and out of the dreamworld.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Pleased with the sudden success in their first venture, Floyd decided to stick to his manipulate-under-pressure model. No better way to learn than at the worst possible moments.

The next challenge found Ariadne gasping through black smoke thicker than exhaust fumes and twice as caustic. In an alleyway she felt around blindly, raking her hands along the mildewy roots of skyscraper walls until they found a fire escape. She clung to it and ascended, up, up just two flights with the last of her breath. She collapsed onto the mesh platform and gazed into the blinding sun.

Thoughts of the inception they'd planned crossed her mind. How could she possibly recreate the climate of France, of Levesque's youth, from whatever dream they were dealt if she couldn't even clear some smoke? She clutched her totem in one hand, the railing in the other.

She coaxed the dream gently, stirring it as if it were a fine sandbox, and managed to gather a rainstorm in the sky. Fat drops hissed through the smoke like missiles, and dissolved it into steamy haze.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

She woke still coughing. She waited, turning her bishop in a shaking hand, while Arthur took a turn, then, and he fared no better. They wrote and took a break to stretch and check the evening news online, then returned for a few more sessions together.

Floyd suggested they keep going one at a time, to develop their own skills separately, in their own dreams, against their own monsters. Even Arthur was impressed by the little progress they'd made so far in the way of bending nature and conjuring a few tiny things that ought not to exist, so he didn't argue.

In between dreamings, he sat on a barstool he'd dragged in from the kitchen and watched the Pasiv and its users from above. Ariadne's eyes darted in the alien thrashes of REM sleep beneath their lids, and the Pasiv's sedative level held steady. Arthur suspected that they might be able to use it for another five or so such short sessions per day, with a healthy amount left over for their persuasion of Dr. Levesque when time ran out.

This inception would be a tricky one – if it could be done at all. Before even considering the puppeteering of the dream, logistically, sedating Levesque would be a challenge. After much thought Arthur had decided that it would best be done physically, gently as possible to reduce aftereffects – a pinch to the neck or blow to the base of the skull, maybe. He'd go in alone the minute Cierra left for something – bathroom, copy-making, didn't matter. He'd lock the door behind her, knock Levesque out, then Ariadne would enter behind him with the Pasiv, and they could begin the dream. It should only take a few real-world minutes. After, he thought, they would stage it like an accident – say, Levesque went to fish something off the racks above the lab benches, and fell and hit his head on the way down. Completely believable.

Then, they could return some hours later in the middle of the day as if for the first time, and hopefully by then he'd have gutted the machine and they could all go home. Piece of cake. _(not)_

Back in the present, in the row house: Floyd's eyes shot open and he sputtered into consciousness, spittle flying into the air. He immediately rolled over and high-fived Ariadne before she was completely awake for it.

"Right _on_!" he said. " _That's_ what we wanna see!" He high-fived her again in case she hadn't been aware of the first one, and rolled back over.

"This little lady," he gasped to Arthur, "has got a _gift_ with magic!"

Ariadne propped herself up, already pink, and mumbled, "It was only a little bit."

It wasn't much, she had to admit, but it was a step; it was one of the

 _(six impossible things before breakfast)_

things that she ought to learn before sharing a dream space with Dr. Levesque again.

Arthur smirked as Floyd went on to describe in great detail how, in just under two 'hours,' Ariadne had learned to pull her feet from the ground of the dream – only a few centimeters up, but still – and even make a ball lighting that would float within a meter or two of Floyd before _popping_ out of existence.

She wrote while Arthur dreamed, and when he woke Floyd reported that he had absolutely no aptitude for force fields, but combat otherwise had been a breeze.

"Had me scared for a minute there," he said, chuckling.

They stayed up until the early hours of the morning, dreaming in shifts, learning magic and drilling mazes and talking through the logistics of their upcoming inception. Floyd melted in as easily as if he were one of the team.

"Thank you," Ariadne said to him around three, yawning, when they were nestled onto the cushions in the barren living room, "for everything. Really."

Floyd stretched and assured her it had been no work on his part. Using the Pasiv with them, he said with a smile, was maybe the most fun he'd ever had.

"And I surfed at Trestles!" he added as he sauntered upstairs to bed.

When he was gone, Arthur watched after him with a look of concern on his face. Suddenly, with the Pasiv turned off for the night and Floyd away, it was real again. They were real again, tomorrow was real again. And the day after that, the day they would have to return to Levesque to either steer him away from his quest or succumb to insanity trying, was real as well.

Ariadne saw all this flash through his eyes, and placed a soft kiss of reassurance on his chin. Monsters were real, maybe, but so were she and Arthur. So were good, terribly wholesome people like Floyd.

Her hand was cramped from writing, and she knew Arthur's was too when he took stiffly it in his. Both fell asleep, right there on the living room cushions of an empty row house on the edge of a world they had to save from the knowledge of a monster waiting in the wings far too close.

* * *

In the morning, Ariadne could remember no dreams of her own, and Arthur could remember no images, only a feeling of sadness that had settled at some point during the night, but fluttered away upon his waking.

It wasn't long into the day before they began to go under again, two at a time, and learn the impossible. It had been Floyd's suggestion that the two of them practice and journal separately, because each would have their own fears that could be coaxed out by their subconscious to be practiced on with magic, but shouldn't necessarily be shared, lest the scientist get one of them but not the other.

Ariadne was going to protest that what was the point, if Floyd himself knew both of their minds, but then she realized: that was his safety, that was his way of removing himself from the equation. It was so hard not to see him as a member of the team now, she'd forgotten he wasn't coming with them the next day.

She couldn't help but think that they would've been better off with such a strong dreamwalker on their side should things go sour. But, at the same time she knew she could not have asked him to come along; he had not dropped out of school to be a thief, he had not kicked this beehive, and he should not feel the consequences of doing so. Ariadne was still learning to live with being a criminal, too, and one thing she could not do was create more criminals herself.

Either way, Floyd seemed to think they could handle things on their own, even at the end of the day when their dream-selves were frayed and exhausted, and their real bodies ached from lying on the floor and filling journals, and still they could hardly do as much as they'd seen from Floyd that first time at the waterfront.

"It's okay," Floyd said, "Not everybody gets it right away. But there's this theory with this magic stuff in lucid dreaming, that if you practice enough and have enough intent you'll have what's called a 'snap.' The snap means it's like ridin' a bike, allova sudden you can do it right then and well, and you'll never forget how again. You'll get there. Anyway, it's just a last-ditch thing – more likely your inception will go over and you won' need it.

"But," he continued, "I think we should try one more thing."

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

They arrived, this time, in a field, wispy and dry nearly as far as they could see. A thin band of green sat on the horizon ahead of them. Some kind of grain Ariadne didn't recognize – grayer than wheat, and dryer than grass – rustled gently, its stalks reaching to her thighs, just below fingertip level. Interspersed about the field were stalks of pale asphodel.

She didn't know a dream could have so much unfilled space, such a vast lot of nothingness. Arthur looked over each shoulder, quickly, just as surprised as Ariadne was by the choice of setting; the decision, this time, had been Floyd's.

"You keep using the buildings. I wanna see how you do without them," he explained.

He stood behind the pair with his arms folded in front of him. His dreadlocks swayed like the grain when he tilted his head, deep in thought, his eyes flitting between them. His gaze finally settled on Ariadne.

"Earlier, you said this guy torments people?"

Quietly, "Yes."

"What did he do to you?"

Ariadne told him.

There had been variety in the dreams, obviously, but nearly all her meetings with the monster had had that one common thread.

Floyd took several steps back, giving himself a radius in which to work. Ariadne's heart thrummed quickly.

A noise filled the air around them, deep and industrial like a faraway motor, before it happened. Floyd snapped his arms forward and fire sprang from them, fire dancing and arcing like rapids as it streamed out and curved, and settled into the grain in a circle around Arthur and Ariadne.

The pair took a step instinctively towards the center, towards each other. The flames reached four meters high or more. They were orange and lapping; the grain beneath them _crackled_ and charred black, but did not crumble. Arthur felt sweat bead on his face, then cook away. Beyond the circle, the landscape rippled and distorted, visible only in the gaps between waving flames, the green at the horizon blocked out completely by rising smoke.

Floyd called from the outside, "Get out! Go on!"

Then the ring of fire began to advance, to shrink, creeping in closer to where Arthur and Ariadne stood back-to-back.

"Ariadne," Arthur breathed. He bent over to gather air.

Ariadne stared into the fire like a mirror, wondering what it would show her, until a charred flake of grass flew up and burned her cheek, and woke her. She gritted her teeth and pushed against the grain, trying to walk the fire and its torch from them.

The ground itself didn't move. However, the grain bent forward, away from her, momentarily, just long enough to catch in the approaching flames, and snap back up. One stalk struck her and she yelped, and ran into Arthur. He caught her and turned to face her, mostly to turn his own back to the fire. He ducked and coughed, once, into his sleeve. Ariadne was dizzy.

The crouched down together into the grass, coughing, eyes bleary, trying to gather the last of the air from between the plants.

Every cell in Ariadne was screaming for air and she thought _we need more air_ and she kept trying to move the air, to no avail because there was no air, she could not reach her body in the cool, well-ventilated row house and now something Floyd had said to her about magic was warring for her attention – not the _air_ , the dream. _Move the dream_ because there was no air here, there was only the dream.

Arthur managed to send one sputtering ball lightning at the ring, but it had no effect on its kin. Ariadne's eyes burned so she closed them. In her mind within a mind she pictured the field, the fire, the air – no, deeper – and felt for the plane on which they knelt. Which they _were_. She saw her self hunkered beneath Arthur, felt the way her body touched the dream, and tried to push not from the dream but herself, and saw the wall materialize.

It wasn't a large one, not like Floyd's but it was enough – the forcefield smothered out a portion of the ring, and Arthur saw, pulled her by the wrist through the gap. Remembering it later for journaling, she didn't think their feet had touched the earth on the way out, either, but that was difficult to say.

Once they were free, sweaty and lightheaded but safely outside the ring of fire, they began to laugh. It came out hoarse and scratchy but they laughed anyway, and Floyd joined in. The fire burned out as it converged on itself, and the trio turned and began to walk in the direction of the green on the horizon, and kept walking until the timer ran out.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Each wrote alone, and by the time they were done they found it was the middle of the night on their second day. Their two days had gone by in a blur of smaller days, those themselves interrupted by a blur of smaller days, or dreams, and now suddenly it was over. Tomorrow, they had to return to face Dr. Levesque, or face whatever dreams and realities may come if they chose not to.

Floyd, confident that he'd done all he could, had left them be and wandered off to meditate in some unreachable corner of the attic. Arthur and Ariadne eventually packed up the Pasiv and made their way upstairs. Ariadne fell asleep almost instantly on top of the quilt, her mind churning with thoughts of the degree, the life she'd left behind for this one – all the classmates and teammates that could suffer if Levesque's blueprints went out to the world.

Arthur carried the Pasiv into their rented room and set it carefully on the hutch at the foot of the bed, on top of Ariadne's blueprints. How funny, he thought, that a few days ago they'd assumed that was all there was to their field. It was almost frightening, the aspects of the dream they could reach into now, the things they could twist to their needs. He, like the others, hoped it would never come to pass that they would need to; he was quite comfortable handling everything with a gun and a well-built maze. He hoped the inception would work – their plan to show Levesque the detriments of obsession through fond memories of his home and family, and the pain of overwork.

But, getting that far would be the hard part. Arthur sat on the edge of the bed and cleaned his Glock, and repacked it along with most of their other belongings for their departure. Ariadne's journal, balanced on the edge of her nightstand, caught his eye. He stopped.

 _What was in there?_ he wondered. What did she see when Levesque was out – were there other horrors?

As if on cue, Ariadne bolted awake, only mere minutes after she'd slipped into sleep. She slid stiffly to the edge of the bed, and jotted rapidly into her log something she didn't want to share, judging by the way she hunched over it, her back to Arthur. When he asked, she assured him Levesque had not visited, only ghosts of her own subconscious, wondering why she'd taken this path in the first place. It had seemed fun, exhilarating at first, yes, but now the roller coaster was about to take off, and they were next in line. Suddenly sick again, this time with thoughts of all that might come their way, Ariadne decided to take a shower.

With her gone, the journal reflected the lamplight softly. It called. Writing is meant to be written, but it also wants to be read.

He heard the shower turn off. Soon the hair dryer whirred to life. He only had a few minutes left, and it was eating him.

Curiosity overthrew impeccable manners, and Arthur picked up the journal from the nightstand. In only these couple days, even, the spine was bent and worn out from use – writing and reading and calculating and recalculating. He opened it slowly. Fanned through a few pages of benign dream events to where her meticulous color code ran red. He didn't have to read for long before his face matched it.

 _I'm standing in the middle of a dirt road that runs through a field of wheat and wildflowers, which goes as far as I can see. The crops are dead and the sky is hazy. There are no buildings, no signs of life, no structures anywhere except for the silhouette of my school on the horizon. I'm running as fast as I can away from it. My feet slip in the dirt so I move forward only a fraction of what I should for the effort I put in. Or, maybe I am running fine – without any point of reference it's hard to tell._

 _Just as I wonder what I'm fleeing, a van speeds up from behind me. Knowing I cannot outrun it, I slow. It screeches to a stop alongside where I stand. The door rolls open and three or four people step out through the dust. They're bound but not blindfolded, and they stumble a little. I recognize them – they're my friends, classmates I've left behind. Some kind of henchman/guard is with them._

 _I face them and feel a weight in my hand, and realize I've got a weapon. Suddenly two officers appear beside me and tell me not to look at them. I stare straight ahead. One presses a gun to my skull just above the ear, and says, "You caught them, now do it." I say no and he presses it harder, like pushing a coin into your palm to make circles._

 _I start to step away and his arm goes around my waist, up my shirt as he plants me back in place and then some. It's so cold. He moves the gun just long enough to cut down one of my friends for me, then returns it when I scream. He says to finish the rest. I can't. I can't I can't I can't. I raise my pistol, but at the last second aim it at the guard instead, even knowing what that will mean. I think I take_

" _Arthur!_ " The book was snatched from his hands so quickly the page tore when he did not release it in time. Ariadne stood over him wearing a nightgown and an expression of broken rage.

For once, he stumbled. "I, uh –"

She glanced down at the page he'd read, still open in her hand, and flushed. "That wasn't yours to read," she managed. Her voice cracked.

She opened her mouth as if to say more, folded her arms over her chest and simply drew breath instead. The reversal of emotions in the last few moments had robbed her of words. Only just back doing her hair in the mirror she'd been feeling better, thinking of him, thinking of – never mind it. Now her teammate, without use of drugs, Pasiv, or extraction teams, had invaded the personal depths of her mind.

Arthur swallowed. "I'm truly sorry. I shouldn't have. I just . . . had to know."

"You had to know?"

"I was concerned for you. I care, Ariadne."

"Well, let's see yours, then; hand it over." To her surprise, Arthur reached into his suitcase and produced his own journal without hesitating. She took it but didn't open it. Would it really help to know? After a few seconds she ultimately decided not to read it; better for her not to know the patterns of Arthur's mind. If she knew, and she slipped tomorrow, she could drag him down with her. And of the two of them, with her monster, she knew she was the more likely to slip.

Ariadne handed the ratty notebook back. "It's okay," she said. "Sorry for yelling at you." Instead of reading or writing any more they got out the Pasiv and decided to go under for one more run.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Once under they practiced combat (Ariadne had improved, but Arthur still excelled further) and changing the landscape (Ariadne masterfully outmaneuvered him), and even experimented with a little bit of magic. When the music was too loud to concentrate on throwing an accurate attack, they walked the Penrose stairs until they woke to the silence of the row house at the edge of the city.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

They packed their tubes and tucked the Pasiv onto the hutch, and, held by a silent draw like that of gravity itself, both resettled onto the bed. What hung in the air was the unspoken probability that tomorrow would be the day this struggle would end, and that not every party involved could emerge intact. Tomorrow they would either push the boulder over the impossible peak, or it would roll back and crush them beneath it. Ariadne wondered, what would it be like for her? Arthur? At this time tomorrow, would her mind still be her own? Would the world ever again be as she knew it today? As she had known it only weeks ago?

She decided she would make it her business in these final hours to tie up as many loose problems as she could. Miles had done all he was able, Cobb was still well out of the loop, and she and Arthur had learned all they could to defend her against Levesque. She thought of Arthur, staring at her from across the bed, of their shared dreams . . . everything from building mazes to fighting with magic, to walking those monotonous Penrose steps, for hours, for comfort at the end of their sessions. Her training had been thorough, but one nagging, seemingly useless question remained. She spoke it to him.

"So, Arthur, what's at the top of the Penrose stairs?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "Nothing, I guess."

"Well, how do you get there?"

"Ariadne," he sighed, " _There is no top_. This isn't something you can approach like everything else. It isn't always logical. The only way to get to the top of the Penrose steps is to _stop climbing them_."

"What?" Not logical was right.

Arthur shifted closer and took her hand in his. He pressed her fingers into a circle to demonstrate.

"The only way to get to the top of the Penrose stairs is to stop climbing them and change your perspective. See, when you keep climbing, your brain treats them like normal stairs it just has to trudge through like every other set of normal stairs." He traced the perimeter of the circle lightly with his own hand, before continuing. "But, when you stop and think about it, you . . . overcome the subconscious. You acknowledge the infinity, your brain recognizes the futility, the impossibility of it all, and you _decide_ you're at the top." He splayed her fingers all at once with his and they folded together as if in collegial prayer.

He finished quietly, "And, suddenly, you're atop the Penrose stairs. . . ."

Ariadne absorbed it in silence.

Without much more thought on the subject, Arthur leaned over and kissed her. For real this time. Real world.

And he wasn't sure if it gave him comfort or alarm that at once, she reciprocated.

And he wasn't sure, either, exactly how he ended up kneeling overtop her, but moments later that's where he was.

Ariadne slid her arms around his neck, never breaking the kiss. Her slender form arced against his body. Arthur grasped the pillowcase in one hand and entangled the other in the smooth locks of her hair. He exhaled, and his breaths spilled across her face, long and in quavering metronome.

He could feel her, every inch, pressed against him. As he parted her lips (and she didn't resist) with his own he had the most absurd thought; a memory, really: that it was said the human brain filters away almost all of the information brought in by the senses – the background noise, its focus is only on that of the most importance. That must have been true, Arthur decided, because where seconds ago he'd felt nothing of interest at all suddenly his skin was alive and itching and every millimeter of fabric mattered (and every bit of it seemed a problem). He could feel the pinch of his belt as he shifted one leg, the brush of a manicured nail as Ariadne wrapped her ankle around its calf. The pressure of the hard plastic of each button on his shirt, annoying, like a line of pennies sandwiched between them, which Ariadne had begun to work her way down.

 _Was this actually happening?_ He pulled back a moment and asked if she was sure. Yes, she murmured. They leaned back towards each other, hearts racing.

"Are _you_ sure?" she added softly, into his collar. Her hands found his belt.

"Uh, _oui,_ " he said. She laughed and pulled it off. Over the few minutes that followed the pair undressed, peeling away layers sweat-dampened clothing like travelers come in from the cold world, baring themselves to a welcome hearth.

Neither could claim it as their first, but they loved one another, trusted one another. It was paced and gentle, nothing desperate or rough about it – but both of them knew, however, that should things go poorly the next day, how scarcely nights like this might come, so they held each other close.

After, she slept with her face buried in his chest, a smile still on her lips, her breaths rushing over his skin. He stayed awake an hour longer, arms wrapped around her, kept up by the nagging determination to stop dawn from coming in and shooing them out into the hell that most certainly awaited.

* * *

 **Only one more Part left... Thanks for R &R-ing! - Hazel**


	7. Invictus

**Part 7/7, better late than never, because "** _ **never**_ **is an awfully long time." I've tried to incorporate not just fiction, but myth, because myth is more than true – but, it's harder to tell a true story. Criticism is always welcome. I will continue to check this site regularly for some time to complete return-reviews under the posted deal in the Part 1 A/N.**

 **I do not own Inception, Dremel, Gauloises, Glock, Dell, WordArt, nor any work of Samuel Menashe's. (He's dead and can't be asked permission of, so I'm not actually allowed to reprint any of his work here so you'll just have to Google it and, like the characters, read it for yourselves.) Only OCs are mine, though even that isn't entirely true so for obvious reasons I stake no legal claims. I can't stop you from using them but please credit and notify me if you do.**

* * *

"Dreams are real while they last. Can we say more of life?" – Havelock Ellis

* * *

The city was still shrouded in a soupy, gloomy fog when the front door of the row house opened. Two figures exited; a third lingered on the porch, barely beneath the dangling chimes.

Ariadne stopped on the front walk, warm in a navy slicker, hood up against the drizzle that fell and rose at the same time through the air. She squinted and looked up. Gray clouds rolled over above, but none sank low enough to mask the stubbornly happy colors of the street. Ariadne hoisted her bag on one shoulder and turned back to face the house.

On the porch, Arthur shook Floyd's hand. In his other he held the Pasiv. It shimmered mutely with water droplets when he walked out to join Ariadne in the mist.

Floyd fingered one of the silent, rusty chime pipes. A sad smile graced his face.

"It's been real, dudes," he said. "Good luck out there – and you come back whenever, understand?"

"Of course," Ariadne said. "Thank you, again."

She couldn't think of many other words for their parting. There were many others, of course, but most of them didn't need to be spoken.

* * *

The drive to the laboratory complex went too fast, as do drives to hospitals, airports, and train stations in wartime. Arthur slowed the car to a stop out on the main road just before the drive; they would approach on foot. Levesque's only windows faced the woods to the north. With any luck, they could approach from the trees on the opposite side of the complex, and he'd never see them coming.

Arthur pulled the key from the ignition but did not open his door. For several minutes they just sat, a spot of blue against a backdrop of towering evergreens, fog wafting around them all the time.

"Ready?" Arthur said. He looked to the passenger's seat.

"Ready," Ariadne confirmed. There was probably no such thing as _ready_ for something like this, but no one on Earth was more prepared for it than they were, so she did not feel it was a lie.

"I'll go in first, check Levesque in the lab. You wait in the service hall with the Pasiv, and when I let you in we'll hook him up, right?"

"Yeah."

Arthur checked that his clip was full and holstered his Glock under his arm. He shrugged on a sport jacket overtop it. He'd offered the weapon to Ariadne, but in the end they'd both agreed it would be better off in experienced hands. She'd settled for carrying his lock picks, those in a little leather snap kit that looked like it held pepper spray, and actual pepper spray.

They left the car on the shoulder of the road, ditched so far into the brush that it was hard to see even at the driveway entrance. They walked through the woods at a diagonal, cutting the corner formed by the intersection of the two streets and approaching the compound from the south. Their walk was silent but for the crunching of pine needles underfoot.

The complex was much as they'd seen it before, though there were fewer cars at this hour. They walked out into the lot, under the redwood with the poppy garden, and through the front entrance. Ariadne tightened her grip on the Pasiv. Jeremy, as expected, did not look up from his computer. It wasn't hard for Ariadne to catch him distracted and, once more, slip behind the half-moon desk and into the central hall. Arthur split off towards the right side of the lobby.

The door closed softly behind Ariadne, and she walked quickly down the corridor and out of sight. She recalled the pattern from their last visit, and wound her way deeper into the heart of the building until she came upon Levesque's back door. It was the only one in its cluster without a window. Noting its place in the row, she retreated a few steps and waited at the corner of the hall.

* * *

Meanwhile, Arthur rapped softly on the frosted glass. For a moment he wasn't sure it could be heard through the airlock, but before long a figure appeared. Another buzz and a beep, and the door slid open. Levesque, taut and calm, waved him inside.

Arthur followed the scientist through the airlock.

Without turning around, Levesque said, "You're alone this morning. I presume nothing's gone wrong?"

"No, not at all," Arthur said calmly. The second door slid shut behind them. "She's close by. But, before she comes in here we need to know there's a good reason for it."

Dr. Levesque looked over his shoulder, one eyebrow up in a question. He started walking towards the back.

"I want to see your blueprints," Arthur continued, and followed, scanning the lab as they went, "For the machine. I want to know that you actually have written schematics to release, that this isn't some joke. Ariadne isn't keen on taking your word for it." The place was cluttered but empty of personnel.

Levesque stopped and looked Arthur up and down, appraising, and finally nodded. He made a turn and walked to where his laptop sat open on the work bench amongst some rotary tools, fishing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket as he went. Behind him, Arthur snagged a socket wrench from the benchtop silently as a panther.

Levesque drew a single cigarette and snapped the box shut with neat fingers. The pack hung loose in his hand, sky blue against bleached lab coat, his arm lowered to his hip. His lips parted slightly.

"A reasonable demand," he mumbled. He navigated through the onscreen libraries.

"No smoke alarms?" Arthur asked.

He continued scrolling.

"No. I had Cierra disable them after a . . . microwave incident."

Arthur sat and looked over the scientist's shoulder – at his shoulder now – at the base of his skull. He raised the socket wrench backhand.

At the moment he brought it down, Levesque, expecting, whirled around with a Dremel in hand. He met the wrench and batted it away with a snarl.

The Gauloise, unlit, pattered onto the linoleum.

Levesque raked the tool back towards him, depressing the trigger. With his other hand he yanked Arthur's stool from under him and let it drop.

Arthur fell to the floor, bleeding from the knuckles, and rolled onto his knees. Before he could reach his gun Levesque was on top of him, wrapping an arm tight around his neck. He twisted, clawed, but was unable to get free. He hunched on one shoulder and reached again for his gun. Levesque was squeezing, spots were coming. Arthur's hand brushed the slide, then fell limply from his jacket.

Dr. Levesque stood and beckoned Cierra from where she waited in the break room.

"Help me move him," he said. "It won't be long before he comes to."

* * *

In the hall, Ariadne watched the flickering of an overhead lightbulb that buzzed low when it was sputtering, and hummed high when it was on full. There weren't any clocks back here, but she checked her phone often. It had been long – too long – since Arthur went in. He should've come to get her by now.

Something wasn't right. Ariadne crept from the corner, closer to the door of the laboratory. She hovered for a moment outside it, less than a meter away. A technician passed her going the other way, but paid her no mind. The lights were on inside. Carefully, she pressed her ear to the door.

First, she heard Dr. Levesque's metallic voice, too muffled for her to make out the words. Some silence, then Levesque's voice again. No Arthur. But then, a woman's – Cierra's! _She hadn't left_.

Ariadne pulled away from the door and staggered back a few steps. She pulled the Pasiv to her chest. Something was _wrong_ , that much was clear. She decided she had to get inside. The blank door panel stared back, daring her to go in blind.

She scanned the hall. A shadow fell through the narrow vertical window of the adjacent door when someone inside turned off the lights. Ariadne crept closer and saw the lab through an identical window inside – _the two rooms were connected!_ Coming in that way would provide good cover. Hands shaking, Ariadne dug Arthur's lock picks from her pocket. She had only the barest idea of how to use them, but it would have to be enough.

* * *

Cierra deposited in the drawer the man's gun, as well as the contents of his pockets, and closed it shut. Beside her, Levesque hummed to himself as he typed.

"She won't be long now, I believe. Not long at all. Do be ready," he said without looking up.

* * *

Ariadne fumbled the picks as she knelt, barely caught them before they hit the ground. She hugged the Pasiv between her knees and grasped the doorknob.

To her surprise, it turned easily. This door was already unlocked.

Strange, she thought, but she'd take any luck handed to her now. Ariadne stood and went inside. She found herself in a sad little breakroom, grey and square with a humming fridge in the corner and a few dishes in the sink.

It was only when the door fell shut behind her, and locked from the _outside_ with a solid _clunk_ , that she realized it wasn't luck. It was a trap.

In front of Ariadne, a face appeared through the narrow window to the lab. Plastic splayed light across the top; its lower half was covered by a respirator, like a painter's or a space-man's, and sharp blue eyes stared out from a sea of freckles above its bridge.

"Where's Arthur?" Ariadne yelled.

Cierra opened the door slowly and just enough. She stepped through, brandishing some sort of canister in one gloved hand.

Ariadne didn't hesitate. Without thought, she whipped the pepper spray from her pocket and expelled it at the scientist until the little can sputtered dry. When she lowered her shaking arm, though, Cierra was still standing there, safe behind her gas mask. She took another step forward.

"Ariadne," she sighed. Her voice would have been gentle, but was distorted behind layers of filters. "Ariadne, calm down. Just come talk to us."

"Where's Arthur?" she repeated. "Is he okay?" She coughed on blowback from the pepper spray.

"He's _fine_ , Ariadne; he just got in the way. We'll let him go, just come inside. Come try your hand with the machine."

Ariadne could feel herself shaking her head, backing, holding the Pasiv tight.

"Cierra, that's crazy. I won't help Dr. Levesque hurt people with that thing. Just, let's get Arthur and leave, you can come too! I don't think you're – you're not like that. Not like him."

The scientist's eyes softened behind the mask. "No. No, I have to stay. To finish the work."

"Jesus, Cierra, what did he do to you?"

"Dr. Levesque? Nothing! He saved my life, actually."

"What?"

"I almost died in an accident at university years ago," she said, shifting. "He got me out. A few years of service isn't that high a price to pay for one's life, don't you think?" Ariadne could sense doubt even in her question, and she grabbed for it.

"If you hate it, or yourself for it. If it's wrong." She could feel the scientist teetering on the edge. But, all at once her eyes steeled and she swung back away.

"The world thinks I'm dead, Ariadne, and it has to stay that way now. I–I've been here so long that if it comes out what I've done for Dr. Levesque, my career in science is trashed. He said he'd write me a clean report once I finish my duties."

"And this work – why did it include tracking me down, exactly? You seem pretty knowledgeable about dream-sharing yourself."

Cierra glanced at the floor, momentarily put off.

"I can't really do it. I don't sleep soundly enough anymore to complete a full, stable run, even with my own sedatives. Smoke inhalation did a number on my head, looks like." She laughed softly. "Dr. Levesque didn't know that until a while after, obviously, till the machine was ready for tests, so he said part of my payment to him was to help find a replacement, an oneironaut." She was fidgeting now, aware persuasion had not worked. _So it would have to be the other way_.

"So, my freedom for yours, huh? That's the deal?"

Cierra's hand closed around a knob on the canister.

"Sorry, hon. But yes."

She twisted and white gas sprayed out, billowing into the room like foam, like lava, spreading out in the air and across the floor and rising. Ariadne tried not to breathe, but that only works for so long. In a last effort of desperation and rage, she reached behind her into the sink and pulled out something hard – a mug – which she hurled at Cierra. It missed, and exploded on the wall. Her limbs were far too heavy to throw properly.

 _I could get out,_ she thought, only the smallest words coming, _I could walk out through the lab if only Cierra would move_.

Ariadne took perhaps two steps towards the other woman – stationary and patient – before she fell to her knees. She folded backwards and stared at that hideous pockmarked ceiling, lips open, as the foglike gas rolled over everything.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

The world was made of shadows. There was no light and no landing, only drifting, a leaf on a rippling pond without shore. Flat static rolled through dimly, even that was rounded off. In a few hours and no time at all, a dull pain welled up and settled in. If there was any thought in this place, it was a hope that it might not be too late for the other, that the world might bend, that the universe might rearrange fate and set them free.

There was transition but no motion. Gravity, its absence yet unnoticed, fell in suddenly.

* * *

A cough. Arthur sat up and ignored the room pitching and nudged Ariadne, knelt beside him barely conscious.

"Hey," he puffed, "you alright?" He rubbed his bandaged hand with his other, not startled to find them paired together. The lab's cartwheeling slowed and halted.

Ariadne looked around her, the gray shadows at the edges of her vision hazy and her thoughts slow. She felt faint.

"I think . . . I feel . . ." The words to finish the sentence were not there; they'd drifted off into the cloud that was swinging sledgehammers onto her frontal lobe.

"You feel unwell?" A smooth voice crooned, clear and cutting as vinegar. The throbbing faded.

"Yes." She blinked. Dr. Levesque rode the agreement and dropped into her field of vision.

"You feel as if you've forgotten something. Yes?"

". . . Yeah." The gray was organizing itself now, edges becoming clear around the shapeless haze to form cabinets and countertops, posters and a frosted door, and – _ouch_ – around her wrists, tight plastic zip ties. She shifted, every movement achingly labored as if she were bound head to toe.

"Terribly sorry about the headache. I am afraid it was necessary." Dr. Levesque squatted on the linoleum, sharp glinting eyes boring into hers with great focus. Too wide, though. He almost looked . . . afraid. The needle second hand of his watch ticked round rapidly; her blood pulsed even faster than it.

"Allow me to, ah, explain. You and your gentleman here entered my laboratory armed and with intent to harm me, and Cierra and I had no choice but to defend ourselves."

Clearer now, Cierra nodded from the far bench sink where she was washing a beaker. She stared at them.

Dr. Levesque continued, his voice strung out thin as if he'd been talking either too little or too long.

"Please, please, don't worry – nothing we've done to you is permanently harmful, and you should be feeling the effects fading already. You'll be fine in a couple of hours."

"The hell we will," Arthur said thickly. He could scarcely believe their luck, and now his mind worked fast. _Now_ they had grounds to put Levesque away legally without bringing up their status as Pasiv users. He'd practically handed them an aggravated assault charge, the fool. "We'll sue, and I suggest you untie us this minute or you'll be lucky if that's all that happens."

Levesque held up his hands, and what had been hiding in his throat, straining his voice suddenly came out: his face crumpled, arms tensed, and a small _huff_ escaped him. Wet, his eyes were like garnet.

"Please, let me finish." The doctor sat down across from them, twirling a silver pair of scissors nervously in one hand. "Cierra and I talked extensively while you were out – a few hours, if you must know – and with everything . . ." He shook his head at the ground, distraught. "I – I can't go on doing this anymore having seen what I did to you. I mean, I'm not a kidnapper, I'm a scientist! That _thing_ has changed me, and you've shown me that and I thank you. I think it's time for a hiatus. Anyway, I've – _we_ 've – decided to let you go." He snipped their zip ties. "Go along and retrieve that forgotten thing, Ariadne; I will not follow."

Levesque reached into a cabinet and held out the Pasiv. Stunned, Ariadne accepted it.

The pair got shakily to their feet, awed and wound in equal capacities. With surprise, they noticed that the machine was again unshrouded – pieces of the MRI shell had been taken off, and wires torn out in several places. A platter of removed bolts sat delicately on the monitor console.

"I hope – I hope you'll be able to leave this behind, move on with your own work, dear," Levesque addressed Ariadne. "I know I certainly shall." He smiled wanly and sniffed as he stood. He grabbed his laptop and tossed it into a full bench sink. It sank, and the schematics died in the frothy water.

"Satisfied?"

Unable to summon anything else, Ariadne nodded slowly. In a daze, she and Arthur left the laboratory complex and began to walk back to their car.

Deep into the woods that cut between the building and the road, they stopped. The trees stood tall and numbered around them. Arthur pulled Ariadne to him and hugged her and her feet left the ground. She kissed him deeply and rested her forehead against his. A small laugh bubbled out.

"I'm so glad," she breathed, "that this is over." Arthur set her down and kissed her again.

"Me too. I was – you don't know how worried – I'm, I'm so glad that man doesn't have a way into your head anymore."

"That was a good thing he did – a good thing _we_ did there. Now he hasn't got a way into _anyone's_ head anymore." Arthur nodded.

"I think most people are probably good at the center, probably have good intentions. He just needed a push."

The pine needles absorbed their conversation. With a lighter step, Ariadne took Arthur by the wrist and pulled him in the direction of the car.

"What now?" he said when they were buckled in.

"I guess . . . I guess we go back to L.A. first thing. Get the rest of our stuff from the hotel, let them know I'm alive and you didn't rob me."

"Works for me." Arthur put the car into gear.

"Are you okay to drive?"

"Not there. We'll make it to the airport, though."

The flight went by in a blink, the cab ride even faster. Soon they stood at their intersection under the Los Angeles sun.

At the crosswalk, they darted between hipsters and businessmen and passed an old woman who looked remarkably like Ariadne's grandmother. _Ready For Work?_ a poster on the lightpole read, advertising suits. On the other side of the intersection they found the extravagant hotel, just as they'd seen it days ago, before all this had begun.

Through a back staff entrance, they avoided the people who came and went. Luckily, Arthur thought, they didn't see a single cop on their way up.

Ariadne tried to picture what lay in her room still. Her luggage was still next to the bed, probably, the safe was ajar, a few snack wrappers lay in the garbage can, some lights in the kitchenette were maybe left on. But beyond that, she had trouble remembering what lay in the lost details, what she'd come for. _What was it what was it what was it that was still here to be retrieved?_

Here calves burned as they climbed. Finally, they arrived at her floor. The door on this side was gray as the emergency stairs; on the other side, the walls were pastel and welcoming.

 _Ah_. She could see it.

She could see it now; the image was taking shape: the paper, folded, tucked in the hollow between two cabinets. In the shadows under the cone of a recessed light. What was written there?

They entered the hallway, their shadows stretched long by the sun through the windows. They stepped around a maid's cart and made their way slowly down the corridor.

"Shouldn't take long . . ." Arthur said, deep and soft. "What do you wanna do after this?"

"Hmm," Ariadne began, thinking, scanning room numbers as they walked. Now that her mind was her own again, now that no monsters lurked in San Francisco, there was really only one thing she could think to say.

"Does that offer for a spot on the next job still stand?"

Arthur smiled down at her.

"Absolutely, it does. Just as soon as we clear town we'll have to assemble the team – minus Cobb, I guess." His head swiveled back and forth across the hall, scanning.

 _That's it! The paper—_

 _It was something from Dom Cobb_ , Ariadne remembered fuzzily. Clothes could be replaced, but that was it, that was the thing that could not – something special, charged, she had to return for it. _Cobb, paper, next job, Cobb, assemble the team, hidden paper, job, what was it?_ It was forming now, though; mentally, she could see it – something written, he had given her, she had hidden, tucked away. Why? _Assemble the team_.

They turned corners in the hallway twice more, and ended up at a ceiling-to-floor window, exactly like the one next to which they'd come out from the stairwell. And there were elevators too, right there. Their room numbers were nowhere to be seen. Arthur ran a hand over his hair and looked around down the hall.

"I don't remember this place being such a maze, huh?"

He picked a direction and started walking again, and that was when it hit Ariadne.

She started to follow, but spun around so fast her arm knocked the porcelain vase from the thin hall table. It fell to the floor and shattered, water and muddy dirt seeping into the rich carpet.

"What's wrong?"

Arthur's handgun snapped as he pulled it from its holster.

"It is a maze," Ariadne mumbled to the empty hall.

She turned back around, towards Arthur, and that was when she noticed the flowers. Not a foot from her toes, the blossoms spilling from the mess of glassy shards were not the flowing, white and lavender orchids as they had been – they were dainty little blooms the color of iced summer brandy. They were finer, smaller things arranged in stiffer clusters than those of orchids, than even of the droopy cowslip with which they shared their hue.

Fennel flowers. _The Fire of Prometheus._ Their smell might have been candy-sweet, but they certainly weren't houseplants. And they certainly weren't orchids.

"Oh my God, it's a maze." She never looked up from the ground. It _had_ to be – _of course_ it had to be a maze. She was being stalled. _Until her image of Cobb's paper was complete_.

Arthur put the gun away to grasp her arm, the broken vase lying in the space between their feet.

"What are you talking about?"

Ariadne tried to stay calm, but it felt like her brain was inching into the back of her skull, leaving a vacuum behind her eyes. She reached into the pocket of her pants, and felt her totem.

To her surprise it felt normal; perfectly in balance. It felt perfectly real. It was real, she tried to tell herself, but it was too late for the lie that their totems mattered.

She glanced to her side and found with some surprise that her room was there, _right there_ , had been there the whole time. Stealthily, she keyed open the door and they both slid inside.

"We're . . . asleep," she whispered as quietly as she could. Levesque could be watching, he could be anywhere, everywhere – this was a game he'd rigged and she had to keep playing, or at least keep up the facade.

Arthur's brow creased. He fished his die from his jacket and dropped it on the little round table. Three times it landed, all the usual, before he glanced up skeptically at Ariadne.

"Those flowers were wrong. We were lost so easily. We're still asleep, in the lab, Arthur," she countered, urgent now.

"But my totem–"

"The totems don't matter anymore!" she looked up, eyes wide, "Arthur, we never woke up. Ike never let us go. He could have taken them off us while we were out – he'd have touched them, then . . ."

Arthur reeled with shock. It made too much sense. Suddenly, horribly, it all made too much sense. Why would Levesque have let them go so easily? He wanted to know what was on that hidden paper, Arthur thought. The true content in real life didn't matter – by the time they found it here, it would be some secret Ariadne's subconscious had planted, no doubt, and they were leading him right to it.

They were performing the extraction for him.

Arthur had only spent a few minutes on Ariadne's floor, but even he remembered the flowers that weren't there. The little quirks in the hotel were pronounced to him now. A lamp here, a bit of molding there. It had been filled in, painted and detailed on a blank page almost perfectly by their subconscious minds, but not quite. Some details were off. And Ariadne was right about the totems, then: Levesque had knocked them out, and would have taken their totems as soon as they fell. The moment he touched the things they became useless, for they were then replicable by his subconscious.

Arthur turned and ran to the window, where heavy curtains lay shut over the great glass wall. He threw them open, their sliders screeching on the rail as they split. Ahead and below, another Los Angeles spread out to a misty, mountainous horizon. Ariadne stepped nearer to the window.

"Pretty close," she said shakily from next to Arthur. "But I think that building goes over _there_."

He pointed as if to ask – and Ariadne screamed.

Though he snatched his hand back reflexively, she had seen it – his finger had extended beyond the plane that should have been allowed by the glass – _the glass was gone_. She blinked. In its place, razor-thin and barely visible, wire was strung out in a crisscross spider web across the gaping window.

Arthur gasped and they both took a step back, grabbed for each other automatically, disturbed that they had been standing mere inches from a twenty-story fall and not known of the danger. Ariadne felt warm blood flow over her fingers from a new wound on Arthur's intertwined hand. If they fell (or jumped), she thought, the wire would have cut through them like

 _wet clay_

butter. A very painful way to wake. Los Angeles was a yawning monster now, a hundred eyes glittering beyond this sharp web. The blood began to dribble onto the carpet, and Ariadne did not remove her hand nor look down to see how bad his was.

"Stay calm," Arthur ordered. "We'll figure this out. I think I know a way to wake up safely. Just don't let him know we're lucid yet."

"Don't let him know _what_?" came a voice from behind them. They spun.

Through the doorway stepped Icarus Levesque.

He carried almost none of his monstrous features this time, though. As when Ariadne had inadvertently walked his dream, his teeth were normal, if a bit too straight, his outfit was that he wore in the lab, and his eyes, dry, were an unremarkable ruddy brown.

He wasn't under the influence of Ariadne's dream, then. Her subconscious couldn't make him look a monster (though his humanness was eerily scary as well). For the second time, he was wholly there, in the dreamworld – his dreamworld – with her.

 _It couldn't be_ , she thought. She backed as close as she dared to the piano wire regardless.

Levesque was walking towards them.

"Give me the paper, Ariadne, that's all I ask." His voice was cold and flat.

"What?"

"The paper you forgot, you've hidden it, don't you see. Somewhere in this room. And I think you know what I'll find on it."

Ariadne did know now, as well and easily as if he'd said it aloud, what her subconscious had been primed all day to write on that card – the life she'd had to put on hold to deal with this monster, the thing she'd had to forget until this point, in its most basic, analytical form – _the names of the team. The contacts of the other dreamwalkers._

 _So if he couldn't have her, he'd have a trail to someone else._

"No – get out of here!"

Levesque advanced on them.

"I'm not leaving without those names, _conpar_."

"No, I can't just—" Levesque grabbed her shoulder roughly and his grip burned like a hot poker, down into her nerves, down into something _deeper,_ something rooting her to the dream, and she was cut off with a gasp.

"The names or your mind, Ariadne. Choose wisely."

"Leave her _alone_."

She twisted away, saying, "I'm not giving you either!"

Arthur kicked the doctor, landing a surprisingly solid one for the dreamworld, and he stumbled back a few steps. When he spoke, his lips came up and his teeth out bare.

"Then I'll just _take it_."

The building shattered beneath them, crumbled into the earth like a sandcastle. Ariadne and Arthur lunged to the wall to brace against the molding. The floor dropped sickeningly, _thumpthumpthumpthump_ , until it was at street level. Waving his arms wide, Levesque blew the walls off; the floor and ceiling dissolved, and they were left standing in the open, deposited on the empty street. Ariadne had never seen such total command. Cars swerved and crashed and piled against an invisible barrier, leaving a radius of about half a block all around them.

The wind picked up, and in the doctor's eyes burned unfettered hate.

Ariadne's hand dropped numbly into her pocket and closed, a loose husk of a cocoon, around her bishop. Her eyes stayed on Levesque. For a brief moment when their gazes met – control and chaos, innovation and overstep, passion and obsession, the line between them ever thinning – the pain associated with the play before them dissolved, and Ariadne felt nothing at all. She wasn't sure whether this numbness was preferable or not. It might have been surrender of the senses; it might have been clarity. It didn't matter, though, for it lasted only a blissful moment before despair flooded back in.

It wasn't the terror or the gore that got to her this time, it was the hopelessness. The complete and utter realization that nothing had worked. Or was working.

After all these days and weeks and sleepless nights, she was still, progress-wise, exactly where she started: a struggling, tangled puppet in the monster's nightmarish theatre. Still here, still cornered. Still pushing the boulder up the impossible slope. She was still climbing the Penrose stairs.

 _Still climbing the Penrose staircase, to which there is no top._

Where did this particular set of Penrose stairs end, then? When she gave in to this monster? When she left Arthur, never to spend another night in his arms, to chase down any last shreds of her sanity in a lab? When this mad scientist had poisoned God-knows-how-many unsuspecting minds, with her help? She narrowed her eyes, and the conscious part of her shuddered with rage.

 _No_ _(non)._

 _Hell (_ _sûrement pas)_ _no_.

The snap stuck her like lightning.

Electric and hot, through every fiber of her dream-body, thickening the flesh until it felt real and material. Her totem warmed in her fingers. A shockwave radiated inward with a muffled jolt. The dreamworld came into sharp focus – by sight, of course, but also by every other sense as well: Ariadne could feel its every feature – not just the buildings – the trees, the projections a mile behind her, the breaths knocked from the lungs of the others.

It was more than moldable. It. Was. Her. Her mind reveled in it( _self)_ , rolled in it, stretched its perceptions out so far her conscious self felt strained.

A groan passed her lips. Fluttering euphoria built in her chest.

Her will and her world bent as one, and with but a glance she built a forcefield around herself and Arthur and began to smooth the dream's edges.

Then, suddenly, there was another force in play. With a will like a constrictor's coil, Levesque fought back – he began to snare the dream. Ariadne could feel his mind there, warring for this space of no space and infinite space, trying to pull the reins away from her. Around them, black molasses began to ooze from the ruined buildings. It seeped through cracked concrete and crumbled walls, smothering the block.

As the dream slipped from her grasp Ariadne had the distinct feeling of losing oxygen, the world becoming pale and muted.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Arthur raise his gun, and the unheard _click_ brought back enough color to hang on by. Before her she saw the scientist walking towards them, steady but with a feral grin of glee and rage. Even he was fading. Soon, he would be no more accessible than a picture in a storybook. Ariadne knew if she dropped her forcefield, she would have but one chance to fight.

She raised her arms. She thought it and could feel magic aching in her wrists. Old magic, the monks' magic, Floyd's magic. It was realer than the cityscape and ran through tendons with her pulse and rippled to be free and just before she was about to loose it – an idea: _What would happen if she set it – that power, the one that tingled in her muscles and tore orbs of energy from thin air, into the_ fabric _of the dream rather than her struggle?_

The forcefield, hazy and gold and stronger than steel, cracked and fell under Levesque's fist. In his eyes burned all the horrors of imagination, brimming to be released through the floodgates and into the dream. He snarled, "Checkmate."

Maybe he was evil but he wasn't dishonest now: Ariadne could see no winning move as they wrestled for control of the dream. _What was the winning move?_ She was an architect against an inventor, a bishop against a queen.

 _End the game._

Ariadne dropped to her knees and as her palms hit the asphalt, she let it go. Let go of the dream. Like dropping tissue-paper confetti, like releasing a handful of flower petals into the wind. Like a child scratching at curled paint on the wall. _Tick tick tick._ A few flakes fell away. With her mind she swept softly again, reeling her own subconscious in from the dream, a few more scattered. Like snow. Vivid, colored depth on one side, blinding white on the infinite other, it swirled away like snowflakes.

Like the smoldering Coudenberg centuries before and many more in centuries to come, this architects' masterwork began to quake and crumble. Under her absent hands, the dreamworld began to come apart at the edges of her vision, flaking away into endless black that grew larger and larger until nothing was left but the strip of road on which they stood. The temperature rose until Ariadne felt she was burning from within. She held on to the asphalt for life.

Levesque wheezed, conjured a pistol and fired a shot at Arthur, and in his effort to dodge Arthur tumbled into the approaching black without a sound. What lay out there ( _in there?_ ) none of them knew.

Ariadne looked away long enough to see the doctor crouched opposite her on the road, in their eye of a silent hurricane. The airless wind ripped the pistol from him. He had the look of betrayal painted on him in the last bits of light as the sky dissipated. Here in their game of tug-o-war, his opponent had let the rope slide through her fingers, leaving him to fall. He'd lost his balance too, and in these last few moments he knew it. His dream was folding. The eye was shrinking.

Ariadne wondered, _how was this dream of his built?_

He started and toppled over when his lab coat began to flake away under her glare.

Ariadne wondered, _if it fell, would they wake or die or neither?_

An expression of wholesome fear graced his visage as the last of the dream underneath them began to crack and scatter.

Ariadne wondered, _what lay beyond the dream in that starless night?_

He hauled himself onto one elbow and turned his face against the wind to her and growled a word she could not understand.

Ariadne remembered: _A nuclear blast is an implosion._

She released their remaining world and it ripped in two, then into a million.

* * *

It was nothingness, absolute. More barren than a padded cell, lights out. It wasn't black, though, and not overbright – simply nothing. It had no static color, no texture, no edges. Here lay a dimension with qualities such that the eyes could not detect. It was purely _mind_ , raw and free of the orderly dressings laid on by dreaming.

It was a sort of tranquil, though, because it was _hers_. Ariadne in that moment – or eternity, she couldn't tell – after the dreamworld fell away and before all the light came pouring in, knew _everything_. She could feel all that she was, remembered all that she had ever been, everything she'd done was accessible with a thought – the infinity within a person compacted into a lightsecond, floating.

She was floating, a ghost among ghosts, when suddenly, the void was disrupted.

As if some cosmic floodgate had been opened, light poured in all at once, spreading like water, white and warm over everything. The dark was no more. _Something_ had opened, and it was overwhelming.

It was only after a few moments of assuming the worst _(the best?)_ that Ariadne realized: it was her eyes. The void fell away and was replaced with the light of a thousand stars.

/ ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

The vitals monitor that was mounted near the machine opening had never been a friend to Cierra. It was a Dell and a few model-years behind the rest of their equipment, and did not have the RAM necessary to run the software they'd built at the rate it needed to go. Once in a while it would crash, and Cierra would work like a NASCAR pit member to reboot and get it up and running again before Ike went unspotted for too long. Usually, that was under three minutes – not bad, for a chemist.

For all the blue screens and frozen windows and software errors it had dealt her over the past couple years, one thing it had never done was lie. It was working, or it _wasn't_. Black and white. But now, as Cierra watched it, drumming her bare fingers on the sticky keyboard, standing amidst three unconscious bodies, it seemed to be lying.

Though it pained her to look at the clock – she hated keeping the woman and man in the lab so long, effectively prisoners – the runtime it showed was several hours by this point, and every one of them had been normal. The first few, of course, had been just Ike alone, preparing, so that was expected. After she had put the sleeping couple under on their briefcase device, even, all signs had stayed steady. But now – _now_ the thing was going crazy. Spikes in heartrate and neural oscillations appeared out of nowhere, body temperature dropped, then rose, signs of some earth-shaking internal events.

Cierra looked over her shoulder, at the lab, down at the pair on the floor. At first their bodies showed no response, still as Ike's but without their own telling vitals monitors – but then they began to stir.

 _No, no, it's too early!_

The man woke first, violently, and jumped up so fast he ripped the Pasiv IV from his arm. Ariadne came seconds later, eyes sliding blearily around her as she sat up.

"What happened?" Cierra blurted, but she was ignored, or undetected. The other two waking people were wrapped up in a decidedly weak embrace.

Fearing their reactions, she stepped around them and thought of leaving. It was wrong, she thought – it was _so wrong_ what Ike did, and she'd helped, she'd done it too, and _oh my god what if they ended up like that doctor in Nevada, too_ , _that brave girl, nice girl, not even out of university yet_. . . but there was no taking it back, and instinct drove her retreat. Arthur might've made a grab for her, but the machine began to act up then and everyone froze.

A single, momentous spark shot up the Jacob's Ladder, writhing, and _cracked_ into nothingness at the upper nodes. The pleasant hum of the machine turned to a low, pained whine, interrupted by _pops_ of discharge from within. The monitor went white. On the table, Levesque remained unnaturally still. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. His loafer twitched. Then, suddenly, he began to wheeze and choke, eyes still shut, hitched inhales hampered somewhat by the weight of the lead vest strapped over him.

"Shit," Arthur muttered. Cierra called Levesque's name.

No time for the motorized bed – Arthur reached into the tube and hauled him out. Ariadne pulled the IV from his wrist and folded his sleeve over it when it bled. Still he did not wake. Nor did he when she slapped him. Behind them, the machine continued to crackle and squeal. Black smoke seeped out of the seams of the thing, and within a minute it puttered into silence. Levesque's breaths came slow and strained.

Ariadne sank to her knees, and Arthur wasn't far behind. They sat on the floor, arm-in-arm, beside the scientist's shuddering body.

"It's over. I think it's over," she said. _Finally._

Arthur nodded and replied, "It's over. I don't think that thing will be running again anytime soon. Whatever you did . . ." _The machine was fried._

"Christ, it wasn't safe," Cierra mumbled. "Should have known it wasn't safe." It did not escape her notice that the two Pasiv users had emerged from whatever they'd done intact, while Levesque was still under, still elsewhere, jumbled inside as if he'd broken up along with the dream he was channeled to.

Suddenly Ariadne's head snapped up.

"The plans! We've got to get rid of the schematics too!" She looked around for Levesque's filing cabinet, and computer. With them still around, someone could recreate all of this.

Arthur scanned the lab as well. There were at least two dozen cabinets and three laptops sitting around, any and all of which could contain vital components of the plans. Gone were the days of a solitary engineer and his single hard blueprint rolled neatly in a mailing tube.

"What time is it?" he asked. His phone was dead, and so was the watch on the wrist of the man before him. It was dark outside.

"Just after six," Ariadne replied, ". . . in the morning." By now she was already halfway across the room, searching, but her motions slowed with realization even as she spoke.

Six in the morning. On a weekday. _Almost a whole day had passed!_ The place was deserted now, but the compound's staff and tenants would start arriving before the hour was up. It would take far longer than they had to search the whole place. Arthur stood.

"We've got to destroy everything," he said, "There's no time. We can't be here when people clock in today, someone's bound to notice the smoke." It was thick near the ceiling now. He began to think of ways to erase their presence, and the machine's. "The cameras feed into that central desk up front, so that's got to go, too . . . Parking lot's clear . . . I don't think anyone could put us here, except . . ." Both he and Ariadne looked at Cierra.

Up till this point she had been sitting silently beside the unconscious Dr. Levesque. The gasping had subsided for the moment. Her face was emotionless. She reached down, aware of the eyes on her, and gently unstrapped the doctor's lead apron with scarred hands. When it was off, his breathing improved slightly but still he remained unresponsive.

"I won't tell anyone," she said, not looking up.

Ariadne replied, "Thank you, but . . ."

"No offense, but you're not really our main concern here," Arthur finished. He hadn't looked for his gun yet, but they both knew it was there. "Now, if you want to be of help, we've got to find the schematics so this doesn't happen again. Where are they?"

"Scattered."

"Great."

"He was a little disorganized," she said absently.

Arthur glanced again down at Dr. Levesque. He hadn't even begun to think about what to do with him. He didn't want a manslaughter on his conscience, or Ariadne's. How to get medics here in time to help him, _and_ make a clean getaway?

A desk drawer slammed, and Ariadne returned with Arthur's gun and totem, the loaded die, balanced carefully on a folder. Her bishop was already back in her pocket. He plucked his things up and put them away.

"Cierra, please try to think of something," Ariadne prompted the chemist. "I know you didn't mean for the project to end up this way, but we've got to make sure no one else gets hurt here. Ever."

"You'll go to jail with him if this is discovered," Arthur added.

Even with that, it was a moment before Cierra came to a resolution. She looked around at the lab, her home, the scientist, her mentor, and at the sweating, smoking machine.

"Hold on – I've got something," she said. "Grab all your stuff. Now." She sprang up and dashed across the room. The creak of a cubby door. Seconds later the fluorescents went off and they were in darkness. By the young dawn Cierra navigated back to the machine, a scalpel glinting in her fist.

She slapped the shell just above the bed, and the maintenance hatch popped open with a burst of smoke. She reached inside and felt around. Her hand found the bundle of low-pressure gas tubes wrapping the border of the innards. The singular soft spot. Carefully, with trained, steady hands, she sliced them open, and hydrogen hissed out into the air.

"I told him this was completely unnecessary, you know," she said, cutting the restraints on the tubes now. "Not to mention dangerous. He could've just gone with auto coolant for something this size, but no, we had to have the best." She eased the severed lengths out of the hatch to dangle there.

"And . . . hydrogen is the best?"

"It's a great coolant for industrial machinery, yes; triple point at pressure and very high specific heat capacity in its diatomic gaseous form. But unfortunately, when mixed with air it's extremely combustible." The chemist moved the cut tubes like they were china, then released them and backed away.

Suddenly her intentions were very clear to Ariadne and Arthur.

"Walk carefully, stay low, and don't bump anything," she said. "No static, no sparks."

Cierra dialed open the gas valves to the Bunsen burners and dumped out the contents of every alcohol on the lab bench before returning to the others. She bent over and pulled Levesque's limp body up over her shoulder. Arthur tried to help but she waved him away.

"Please – I was on the rowing team in college," she said with a smirk, tone suddenly lighter. They all exited quickly through the hall door. Once in the lobby, Cierra and Ariadne ran out the front doors, made it all the way to the far end of the parking lot. Arthur lingered in the entrance. When by the wall clock in the lobby a few minutes had passed – enough for half the contents of the machine's tanks to leak out, Cierra said – he drew his Glock. Through the frosted glass of the lab's airlock, the red light of the keypad blinked in the dark. It provided him a target.

Arthur fired, holstered, and ran in one motion, but still it wasn't quick enough. In his mind, there was some delay. A half second of silence after the buzz of the short where he was pushing the door open, one leg out, the other one in front now, only his heartbeat, second stride; his arm came up instinctively to cover his head.

The lab exploded with such force it threw him further than he could have jumped, and he tucked midair and landed in the fetal position. Shards of glass showered down on him. Some were distorted with heat. At the other end of the lot, Ariadne and Cierra shielded their eyes from the sudden burst of light. When it stopped, Arthur jumped to his feet and ran the rest of the way across the pavement, to where the women stood. As he suspected, more blasts followed the first as the fire reached other labs in the compound, one impacting the next as if it were a minefield.

When a full minute passed with no new explosions, the remaining skeleton of the building still burned, barely brighter than the rising sun. The scraggly redwood by the entrance had survived the blast, but now caught in the heightening flames. It cracked and sizzled and finally snapped in half, collapsing in a final bow to its audience of three.

Cierra took perhaps ten steps forward, and lowered Levesque to the pavement.

"Cierra?" he mumbled, eyes shut, tongue thick.

"It's Dr. von Brandt," she said, and dropped him the last few inches. Left him on his back, arms outstretched to the woods on either side of them. She straightened and walked back to the others without looking back. In response to their questioning stares she simply said, "My debt is paid. He's on his own now."

They retreated from the open at the first hint of a siren.

* * *

Arthur, Ariadne, and Cierra watched from the woods as ash came down like snow around them. A fear settled in Ariadne's gut that rivaled that the Pompeiians must have felt when Vesuvius began to spew its ash centuries before. She wasn't watching the flames, though. Squinted and watering with smoke, her eyes were on Dr. Levesque.

He lay on the asphalt, unmoving at first. With lead vest removed to ease his breathing, he was left in only his day clothes and a lab coat smoldering at the tail. He began to tremble even before he woke. When he did wake, he rolled over and vomited tar and bile almost immediately, and dissolved then into screaming tears, nose down against the blacktop. He was still like that when the ambulance arrived.

It took some convincing for the paramedics to pull him to his feet and lead him to the back of the lot. Firefighters arrived to address the burning building, and it resisted valiantly with more than a couple fireballs belched out at them into the dying night. A dry western thunderstorm cackled in the distance.

Watching unseen from the greenery, Ariadne saw the paramedics fight an oxygen mask onto the struggling scientist. Saw him twist and scream until his lungs could not and kick and rasp curses at nonexistent people as madness swallowed him whole.

Beside the receding flames, she saw the frail entity that is rationality leave Dr. Ike Levesque before they closed the ambulance doors. The squad peeled off down the driveway, sirens blaring. The trio was left in the perfect still that both precedes and follows most disasters.

"We did that, Arthur," Ariadne whispered softly. "I did that."

No one said anything more and they hurried to Arthur's rental and sped out. The busy authorities never knew they were there.

They would eventually, though, should they decide to investigate for arson. Thus Arthur reached the Los Angeles rent-a-car dealership in record time, and Ariadne dialed Cobb on the way. No sense in keeping him out of it now, and they'd need help besides. The rest of the team was quick to follow. There were three in Cobb's car already when he picked them up on a dark roadside well into the night.

Cierra had asked only the most pertinent questions on their drive south. By the time they reached the outskirts of Los Angeles, she knew enough about them to know she'd done the right thing. Their respective transpacific flights were booked for the next day before they'd even breached town.

After covertly retrieving a few remaining belongings from their hotel, for real this time, they slept for just a few hours at a place Cobb offered up.

* * *

When Arthur blinked awake, he took a moment to register where he was. The sheets were cold, crisp still in the fading of night, hazy light poured through the windows, and somewhere nearby, a television was playing.

There was a spot of warmth, too: Ariadne was still lying on his chest. She was awake, though, and staring out the window, unmoving. He clenched. How had (the rest of) her night gone? What demons had reared their heads this time? The way her lips were pursed, she might have been pouting or she might have been pensive; he couldn't tell. She glanced at him when she saw he was awake.

"Sweet dreams?" Arthur asked. His expression was smug, but there was trepidation in his voice.

"No dreams," replied Ariadne. And quieter, "None at all."

Arthur grimaced with sympathy.

It pained him to know what that meant: Ariadne, like those long-time Pasiv users, had likely lost the ability to dream naturally. She would go to sleep, and wake up seeming moments later, with a timeless void in between. It was a sad, empty way to be, especially for one who had so recently mastered lucid dreaming. It was a condition reserved almost exclusively for those whom had used Pasiv devices for years, for the elderly, and for those whose minds had become too encumbered by alcohol or drugs to maintain an alternate reality all their own . . . but Ariadne's unique episodes and encounters with an experimental, wireless dream-sharer must have accelerated the decline. There was always a chance natural dreams would return to her in the future, but the possibility was unlikely; she would have to rely on the Pasiv from now on. His reply was strained but even.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

It was late morning – God himself could not have timed it better, Arthur thought – when the news broke: evidence of the missing hotel guests from L.A. had turned up at the arson investigation in San Francisco. It was unclear if they were alive or dead following the incident, but further investigation would follow. Six of the eight crammed around the breakfast table stopped chewing to watch, stunned. It was only a matter of time before Arthur and Ariadne (and perhaps Cierra) would be pursued as suspects. The police cars on the television began to wail down the highway as the group ran out the door of their lodgings and into the car.

Eames at the wheel, Cobb in the passenger seat, and the other four crammed into the back. Yusuf had showed up to invite Cierra, as he'd readily agreed to hire her on as a chemist.

"Any others you want to send my way?" Yusuf said heartily, and chuckled.

Ariadne thought and said, "Actually, maybe one more. You'll like him, I think." _A customer for sure, at first. But maybe useful down the line. Maybe a partner, maybe a teacher, if he was up for it._

A week into the future, an unsolicited travel brochure would arrive in the mailbox of the peach Italianate row house at the edge of San Francisco. The front, depicting a trio of tall, spindly palm trees leaning over a sugar-white beach, would read _Visit Mombasa, Kenya – Book Your Dream Vacation Today!_ in a script something like WordArt. Inside would be resort packages, beach pictures, a tiny map – and scratched into the corner in hasty handwriting, a street address. In the thirty-five hours of travel required to get there, Floyd would not allow himself to hope too hard for what he would end up indeed finding in the basement, for his use and tinkering, for as long as he wanted to stay.

In the car, the team was listening to accounts of the preceding events. Cobb took a long drink of his coffee, eyes widening at their story.

"So you torched the lab? All of it?" he said, and set his drink in the cup holder.

"Yes," said Arthur, "The device destroyed itself, mostly, but we had to take care of the rest. The plans, the blueprint files."

"Can't believe I'm helping you rats get away with murder," Eames chimed in. He glanced at them though the rearview mirror and smirked.

Ariadne looked horrified. "We didn't kill anyone!" she said. The car swung a fast, tight corner, and she braced against Arthur.

"Aye, lovebirds?" said Eames. Arthur shook his head. They accelerated past ninety miles per hour.

"What happened to Levesque, then?" Cobb asked. Arthur reviewed a hacked EMT bulletin on his laptop while Cierra peeked over his shoulder.

"Comatose by the end of a day from 'smoke inhalation,' at least officially. Before he slid under says he was rambling. Delusional. Skittish. I wouldn't worry about it; he's too unstable to be a viable witness. Even if he wakes, even if he has any memory of us, no one'll believe a word he says."

"Serves the prick right," Eames grumbled. He slammed on the brakes, and made a rude gesture at the driver who'd cut them off at a merge. The wheels of their vehicle screeched. "I suppose he's not doing so hot by now, anyway. They say how he's faring lately?"

Arthur shrugged, but Ariadne answered before he could.

"I don't know," she said softly, honestly. Ariadne wanted more than anything to leave it behind. She wanted to forget the torturer, the kidnapper, the thieves. Forgive, no. Forget, on the other hand, was doable; desirable, even.

Levesque had dragged her, kicking, down the Penrose stairs, and she knew now that to stand at the top she had to let the crook go. This boulder was not hers to bear, and neither rat race was hers to run. Still, she allowed herself to feel contempt.

She stared out the window, at the skyscrapers flying by in all their glory, at the sun scattered over the city on a million plates of glass, at the crisscross dome of the airport looming closer. She cracked a small smile.

"I don't know," she repeated, "And it doesn't matter all that much, but . . . but I'd like to think sometimes he'll have nightmares about me."

This was the last Ariadne would see of the team, all of them together, for a long while. But they'd known that was coming since the initiation of the Fischer job. And besides, all knew it was doable to meet again. What would've seemed impossible to _them_?

Hasty goodbyes and burning rubber and boarding a private plane all blurred together. Left to think over an engine's hum, Ariadne still boiled over Levesque.

Bitterness is hard to instill permanently, though. As the following days carried her over oceans, across borders, and finally to a rented condo in the middle of a choppy sea, her contempt faded back to doubt, and doubt easily contorted itself into remorse.

* * *

Ariadne woke from a dreamless sleep into a room equally without feature.

The walls were as whitewashed as the sheets in which she lay, as the translucent curtains reaching inwards on the arms of an ocean breeze, as the sun-bleached buildings that stretched, interconnected, around the caldera. The breeze grew from a fluttering into a shrill whistle. Ariadne's mind carried it to a scream.

Santorini is an island formation in the Aegean Sea, not far from the outstretched hand of Greece. It is in the shape of a rough crescent moon, surrounded by other islands, which are perhaps the stars and nebulae. Its birth was an ugly, volcanic one. It has taken a few days, a few thousand miles in the air, but Oia, Santorini is where Arthur and Ariadne have found themselves. This is only a stop on their journey home, a temporary hiding place, but it is nice here, so they might call it a vacation. The local renters think they are honeymooners, Mr. and Mrs. Sauveterre, and make their visit quite pleasant.

Seven thousand four hundred and nineteen miles Levesque had managed to follow Ariadne. She stayed in bed long after Arthur had left to read on the porch, after the sun dipped into her eyes through those thin curtains. Bodily, Levesque was in a hospital somewhere in northern California. She could still see him at the lab, though. He'd fought when the EMT's came – hollered, thrashed, wept – and when he'd finally gotten tired and they'd strapped him to the gurney, he'd asked if they might notify his parents about going to the hospital. What an outrageously, tragically pure thing to say. The lucidity didn't last, though; it hardly ever does, and reports from Eames' sources said he wasn't likely to improve.

So Ariadne could not rise, with the guilt of what she'd destroyed seated firmly on her chest. She'd single-handedly purged his consciousness more severely than limbo ever could. Much as he might have deserved it, the act could emerge from that context in her thoughts. Twisted as it might have been, what she'd destroyed was still a very potent human mind. The blank walls of the condo liked to ask her in these hours what she might've ruined. Might Levesque have come around, seized from his single-minded pursuit of dream domination by a revelation in something else? Could he have cured Alzheimer's after all? Found a treatment for Fatal Familial Insomnia? What, oh what, might such a mind have done if Ariadne had not melted it from the inside out? Levesque hadn't totally lost; it seemed he'd only passed the torch so history might come round again.

For about two days she stayed there, laying or sitting, leaving only to use the restroom or nibble a plain scone. She could never bring herself to touch the coffee Arthur made. Arthur could never bring himself to push her for conversation.

But on this, their third morning in Santorini, she woke to something different. Even as the wind stretched to its high whistle around their neo-classical eggshell walls, a fluttering continued. Ariadne lifted her head and squinted. On the pillow next to hers, pinned to the otherwise empty bed by a lava stone, was a small sheet of paper. Heavily, she turned onto her side. She removed the stone and picked it up. The wind died a moment to allow her to read it.

On it was transcribed a poem, powerful despite its brevity – or maybe because of it – in Arthur's familiar handwriting. It was followed only by:

 _("Tempus fugit," by Menashe) . . . Tempus fugit – Don't stay in there forever, alright?_

Ariadne stared at it for a long time. She read the lines over thrice, and then continued to look at the paper, no longer reading, as she let it settle in her head. Let it swirl and ferment.

Finally, it sprung her. She pulled off the sheets and dipped her feet lightly onto the floor. She left them bare but found a bathrobe, and folded the note neatly into its pocket. The piece's ideas lifted the weight as she crossed the room. She tied the robe and walked toward the curtained archway. Over the threshold, out into the open world.

Arthur closed his book and greeted her out on the front walk, and the wind began again. From the cliffs above tumbled a shower of sands and scents and seeds. A rare crown of golden fennel, severed how we may never know, blew down and landed neatly upon their joined hands.

So few ever clear the Penrose stairs as they do. It must be awfully lonely up there amongst the stars.

.

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Fin.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Many elements of the nightmare scenes in this story are real. Most are mine, and some have been queried of others. Some others still had to be fabricated, of course; as Mark Twain observed, "fiction has to make sense." Alas, dreams often do not.**

 **More real, in a different way, is the persistent problem represented here by the Penrose stairs. You've seen it before. I struggled with it, making this, deciding where to go after making this, and continue to wrestle with it to this day. I'm not there yet. I'm sure many of you struggle with it as well, and I hope that reading this silly little story might have provided you with some small hope of finding a solution – or at least an awareness of the problem – as writing it did for me.**

 **The poem transcribed by Arthur here in this last chapter is entitled "Tempus fugit," which is Latin for, "time flies." The piece itself was written by the modern poet Samuel Menashe (2009), but the title phrase is originally attributed to the ancient poet Virgil, who walked with Dante through the depths of hell. Both, I think, are appropriate.**

 **By way of final disclaimer I should thank Christopher Nolan for giving us, among other things, the world of Inception as an immersive spectacle, inspiration, and here a jumping-off point. Also the anonymous heroes of the Internet for lending their darkest dreams, Dante Alighieri, M.C. Escher and other unnamed luminaries for lighting the way, and John Green, for encouraging us all to write our way out of the labyrinth.**

 **Hazel Sparks, over and out.**


End file.
